


Gabriel Tries His Best

by LilacEnthusiast



Series: Butterflies and bad decisions [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Amnesia, Angst and Humor, Butterflies, Crack Treated Seriously, Crying, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Misunderstandings, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Swearing, identity crisis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2020-10-18 20:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 62,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20645180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilacEnthusiast/pseuds/LilacEnthusiast
Summary: Gabriel Agreste disappeared over a year ago. When he returns, he is a changed man with no memory of his life before he disappeared.As far as Gabriel is concerned, he is a magnificent butterfly trapped in the ungainly and unfamiliar body of human.





	1. Gabriel Comes Back Swinging

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Mr_BlackCat for beta reading!
> 
> The further I write, the less canon-complaint Gabriel gets. When I started writing this series, I did not predict that he'd be so delighted about the idea of harming children.

A figure slunk through the shadowed corridors and cavernous rooms, scarcely making a sound as it made its way across the cool marble floors. Only the stars bore witness with their twinkling, distant gaze to the figure scrabbling over furniture. Uncertain hands grasped at hooks and crevices in the walls, finding purchase. Crystals tinkled and metal groaned in the near silent night. 

Suddenly, light pierced the darkness, illuminating the startled figure. It was Gabriel Agreste, clinging to a still swinging chandelier. Aside from blinking rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the sudden change, Gabriel was rather unbothered by the light produced by the flashlight pointing at him. Adrien, the owner of the flashlight, sluggishly rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

“Father, w-.... It’s 3 AM… this is... what... the third time this week?”

Adrien yawned, stumbled off, and returned a few moments later with an equally groggy Nathalie, who was toting an inflatable mattress and a blanket. Nathalie placed the mattress underneath the chandelier. Adrien then flickered the light at Gabriel before rapidly moving its beam onto the mattress. The disoriented man’s mesmerized gaze followed the beam, as he made excited clicking noises before he leapt after it, trying to catch it in his hands. 

Gabriel blinked sluggishly for a few moments before a look of mortification spread across his face. 

“Oh, sorry…. um… Adrien… Nathalie”

“Gabriel, why do you keep doing this? It’s terribly unsafe.”

Gabriel pursed his lips and furrowed his brow for a moment, trying to process what Nathalie had just said to him and searching for words to respond with.

“Feels… safe…?”

Troubled looks crossed Adrien and Nathalie’s faces as they tried to interpret what exactly Gabriel meant, each of them drawing their own conclusions. Meanwhile, Gabriel tentatively tried to stand upright, wobbling on his unsteady legs. Before he could tip over and fall flat on his face, Nathalie caught him by the shoulders. She gently sat him back down onto the mattress, carefully brushing his tangled hair out of his eyes. 

“We’re going to have to teach you how to use a hair brush soon, and a toothbrush and razor as well…”

Nathalie winced slightly at the memory of how awkward and difficult brushing Gabriel’s hair and teeth had been the past few days. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how much of a fiasco shaving would be due to the involvement of shaving cream and razors. Gabriel stared at her for a moment in confusion.

“Hair… brush?”

Nathalie sighed, as she and Adrien placed the blanket around Gabriel’s shoulders and helped him to his feet. The pair helped Gabriel stagger back to his bedroom, making sure he didn’t trip or lose his balance. The chandelier still swayed slightly behind them, crystals quietly clanging against each other and dappleing the room in a soft shifting light.

“I-.... Nathalie, do you think father is… should we try and explain who we are or who mom is to him?”

”I’m not sure he’ll be able to understand what we’re telling him until he has a firmer grasp of basic language… he’s well enough to handle speech and physical therapy, so perhaps we’ll be able to tell him once he starts therapy and makes enough progress.”

“Yeah, okay. It just… hurts to see him so confused and frustrated all the time and not recognize mom whenever he sees pictures of her…”

“I know, remember that he’s making progress, even if it’s slow and difficult… even if him starting to dress himself unaided doesn’t seem like much, it’s proof that he can improve and, well, that he’s aware and motivated.”

————-______________————

Once Nathalie and Adrien had left the room, Gabriel lay in bed, trying to get his jumbled thoughts in order. He still felt adrift, lost in a human life everyone around him could remember but he couldn’t. The only solid frame of reference for nearly every aspect of life was his butterfly instincts. He missed being a butterfly, and hated how clumsy and useless he now felt in his human body. 

Gabriel felt frustration bubble up inside his chest when he struggled to do things that came so easily to Adrien and Nathalie. Their methods of communication still largely escaped his comprehension. At least body language was fairly easy to grasp despite how alien it was with freakishly complicated facial muscles and a lack of wings or antennae. Deciphering the strange sounds they made with their mouths and the markings they made on certain objects was a much more significant struggle. While his vocabulary was steadily increasing, he still could not understand grammar or sentence structure, which often left him feeling locked out of conversations. 

Sometimes, Gabriel saw pictures on the walls that featured a person that looked like him, a person that he couldn’t remember being. The man in the pictures had his face and was sometimes with Adrien or people he didn’t recognize. Gabriel desperately wanted to believe that he was truly a butterfly and had always been a butterfly, but the pictures of the man who had his face told a different story. He knew the strange, and sometimes sad, looks he got from Adrien and Nathalie were probably at least somewhat tied to him not acting like the man they once knew, the man he was supposed to be. 

Gabriel curled up under his bedsheets, trying not to cry. The jagged scars under his shirt ached as his mind struggled to grapple with his reality and shattered sense of self. His chest felt tight and strange and his head pounded whenever his eyes tried to focus for too long. Everything about his body felt wrong and awful and he constantly struggled to understand the input he got from his surroundings from such abnormal sensory organs.

On the day he’s been brought to this strange place, he’d seen his own face in the mirror and screamed like a banshee upon realizing that he was looking at his own reflection. The bony structures protruding from his gaping mouth, disproportionately small eyes, and cartilaginous bump made his stomach churn. Other human visages he’d been exposed to had been disgusting and terrifying, but tolerable, as at least they were not his own. Realizing that he too had such hideous and bizarre features had felt like a slap to his overly complicated face. 

His body felt heavy and clumsy, poorly balanced and perpetually earthbound. He oh so desperately missed the comforting weight of wings on his back. Without their bright colors, how could Gabriel even begin to express himself and show off to everyone around him. Now, he was bereft of the capability to properly flutter, flap, or flounce. 

————-______________————

Gabriel was sitting at a table. A strange ache was throbbing in his neck. The smell of garlic and cooking meat filled the air around him. A blossoming tree and the sunny cloudless sky was visible through the window. A quiet, unfamiliar voice hummed a strange, hauntingly familiar tune. His gaze turned to the source of the sound. A tall woman stood at a stove, wavy blonde hair cascading down her back. She was stirring what appeared to be ground meat in a skillet, dancing jauntily to whatever tune she was humming. Her hair bounced and swayed slightly whenever she moved. 

“Who a-are you? Wh-“

The woman started at the sound of his voice, turning around rapidly. Her eyes were green. Gabriel had seen those eyes somewhere before. A sharp pain shot through his skull. His teeth felt loose. The woman laughed high and clear tilting her sharp chin slightly.

“I’m ??????, silly! Ar-are you alright? You look rather pale…”

The woman’s brow furrowed and her serene smile fell into a worried frown. A ladybug crawled down her cheek at a leisurely pace, and she didn’t bat an eye. 

Sweat poured down Gabriel’s face. His skin felt tight and itchy. The smell of garlic and cooking meat got stronger and stronger.

“I… sorry… I must be mista-“

Gabriel felt something oozing out of his nose, and he lifted his hand to wipe it. When he pulled his hand away it was smeared in a blue-ish purple liquid. The sky outside was dark and the tree was gnarled and stripped of bark and foliage. A cat-like figure sat nestled in its branches, eyes luminescent and far too human. The woman was gone, yet the humming persisted. The pan was filled with shimmering blue and green feathers and simmering meat. The stench of cooked meat was overwhelming. Gabriel felt his stomach churn. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d blinked. 

Gabriel got up from his seat and staggered to the bathroom, feeling like he was wading through some sort of thick syrupy substance. Heaving, he leaned over the porcelain toilet bowl. Chunks of hair, lilies, daisies, dead leaves, and scraps of white silk fell from his mouth and into the toilet with a splash. His back and neck itched so badly they almost burned. Furiously, he scratched at his back until he felt something tear and he was filled with a strange sort of relief. Then, he silently stood up and looked at himself in the mirror. His skin hung from his face, waxy and lifeless, and there was what appeared to be some sort of seam wrapping around his neck. Gabriel raised a trembling hand to his neck and pulled.

His flesh and hair slid off with surprising ease.

The familiar face of a butterfly stared back at him.

The word “**deceiver**” echoed quietly through the room. It sounded almost as if someone was whispering next to Gabriel, their lips pressed so close to him that he could almost feel their hot raspy breath against his face.

Gabriel was sitting at a table. A strange ache was throbbing in his neck.

————-______________————

Soon enough, the sun rose over the horizon and ushered in a new dawn. Adrien, dressed and ready for school, padded past a still groggy Nathalie who was nursing a cup of coffee that contained enough caffeine to kill an entire swarm of locusts. They gave each other slightly weary nods of acknowledgement as Adrien picked up the extra, uneaten portion of breakfast that had been laid out on the dining room table. 

Gingerly, he crept into Gabriel’s room.

Gabriel lay curled up in a makeshift cocoon of blankets, his face still red and puffy from tears and lack of sleep. The half-asleep man quietly whimpered and struggled to open his eyes upon hearing Adrien enter his room. Adrien managed to gently coax him out of his blankets and into a proper sitting position before gently pressing a glass of orange juice into his father’s uncertain hands. Instinctively, Gabriel stuck out his tongue and tried to insert it into the cup like a butterfly’s proboscis, awkwardly tipping it and getting more of the juice on his face than in his mouth in the process. 

Adrien winced at the magnificent display of the man’s inability to properly use a cup, and gently pried said cup from Gabriel’s hands. He then slowly and deliberately mimed drinking from it before returning the vessel and its remaining contents to Gabriel’s grasp. Gabriel then proceeded to take a jerky swig from the cup, managing to actually drink the juice. He sent Adrien a tentative smile. Said smile was returned which was followed by Adrien holding a plate of scrambled eggs to Gabriel. The former butterfly recoiled at the sight of the eggs, vaguely aware of Adrien’s expectation that he would actually eat something so lacking in sugar and difficult to digest. He absolutely loathed chewing with a burning passion, as it made his jaw ache and carried the risk of him accidentally biting his own tongue. Gabriel briefly considered avoiding having to eat what he considered a revolting substance by climbing atop the dresser and hiding in a pile of blankets and clothes he’d managed to make there. Any real desire to flee was dispelled by the disarming, expectant smile on Adrien’s face. A twinge of guilt shot through Gabriel at the thought of making the teen worry more than he already had. 

Gabriel wasn’t entirely certain, but he suspected that he was the reason for Adrien’s distress in conversations he’d managed to overhear the teen having with Nathalie and other, more unfamiliar humans. He couldn’t understand much besides how often the teen wept and used his name alongside words he noticed frequently used when addressing him such as “Father” and “Mr. Agreste”. 

Regardless of what these conversations meant, they still convinced Gabriel to scarf down the eggs for Adrien’s sake, soldiering through the unpleasant taste and texture. He opened and closed his jaw in a rhythmic fashion like he’d been taught, making sure the food was completely pulverized before swallowing. It was best not to test Nathalie’s proficiency with the Heimlich maneuver again. Even if Nathalie was capable in handling the maneuver, Gabriel nearly choked to death on multiple occasions. Gabriel’s stomach was still sore from the last time he’d forgotten to chew solid food. Throughout the ordeal of eating something so solid and lacking in flavor, Gabriel made sure to scowl belligerently and generally look as miserable as possible in hopes of showing Adrien how displeased he was. Upon finishing the dish, Gabriel grimaced and awkwardly handed the dish back to Adrien. Adrien let out a sigh of relief.

“Great job, father! You actually managed to use a fork this time… I know it’s been… hard adjusting and that you’re used to a liquid diet… but if you don’t get back to eating solids it… you could get sick from malnutrition…”

While Gabriel’s disdain for solid food was as strong as ever, such sacrifices seemed somewhat tolerable for the sake of his health and Adrien’s peace of mind.

“Ok?”

“I… father um… it seems you got some orange juice on your… everywhere… I’ll go get something for that! Wait here and don’t try to crawl up the walls or jump off of anything, ok?”

The teen hurriedly rushed off to get a damp washcloth. In the meantime, Gabriel contemplated his own eyelashes, wondering what exactly their purpose was.

When Adrien returned, he saw Gabriel experimentally poking at his eyelashes, and stared dumbfounded for a moment. The teen shook himself out of his mild surprise and set to carefully wiping what was left of the juice and any other debris that had gotten on his father’s face with a washcloth. Gabriel let out a startled yelp at the sudden sensation of the cool, damp washcloth against his face. Gabriel mumbled incoherent protests, but ultimately accepted the assistance in cleaning his face.

Adrien, on the other hand, tried to push away a heavy sadness that had been hanging over him every since his father returned. His father may have come back alive, but he was not the man he once was. Adrien knew, deep down, that without him or Nathalie, his father would have probably been institutionalized. If his father had never been found, he might have starved to death on the streets or still been at the mercy of the monster that left him in such a sorry state. Adrien was almost certain that someone had kidnapped his father and intentionally laid waste to his mind and body, leaving him completely reliant on whomever was feeding and clothing him. Adrien, at some point, had finished cleaning Gabriel’s face and ended up caught up in his thoughts. He was shaken out of his reverie when he felt something lightly bump against his forehead, and realized his father’s forehead. The concerned man had in some misguided attempt to express affection and gratitude had ended up trying to communicate via antennae despite both parties lacking the appendages. Gabriel’s brow furrowed and a nervous grin spread across his face. 

“Adrien? Alright?”

“Yes… I am… alright. Don’t worry about me. You’re the one who probably should be worrying the least here, since it could hinder your recovery… I know you don’t remember who I was to you before, but I’m here for you… I wish that you could understand everything that I’m saying and how much getting to spend time with you means to me… I just wish it didn’t take such awful circumstances for us to finally have some quality time together… I’ll do everything in my power to find out what happened to you and… whoever played a part in it… even if it was Hawkmoth himself… and make sure they can’t hurt you or anyone else ever again… I just wish I knew…”

All Gabriel could offer in response was a confused stare as most of what Adrien had said had flown right over his head. Though, he could still glean Adrien’s emotional distress from the teen’s tone of voice and a few familiar words. A wave of sobering disappointment crashed over Gabriel when he remembered he didn’t even have wings to flap comfortingly.

————-______________————

Nathalie watched the soupy mixture of clothes, water, and detergent churn inside the washing machine. The coffee cup she had clasped in her hands was almost intolerably hot. If she took a sip without waiting for the beverage to cool down, it would have surely scalded her tongue. 

It was her turn to do laundry this week. She and Adrien has alternated laundry and cleaning duty every week ever since Emilie fell ill. In the throes of grief and paranoia, Gabriel had fired all “non-essential” and “non-trustworthy” staff. At the time, Nathalie had seen it as an opportunity to teach Adrien how to do basic household chores. Now it had become a routine habit and one of the few things that stayed constant after Gabriel had disappeared off the face of the Earth and returned more than a year later. 

There was something oddly calming about the rhythmic thrumming of the washing and drying machines. Nathalie leaned against the table stubbornly sitting slightly off center of the middle of the laundry room, relieving some of the pressure from her sore feet. Her eyes and mind wandered to the relatively unfamiliar set of laundry still waiting to be washed. Not so long ago she’d tried to suppress a bitter laugh about the irony of some of these clothes being laden with mothballs when she removed them from storage. A good portion of the original stock had to be placed back in storage anyways, as they were now unsuitable for their original owner due to being overly complicated or restrictive. The culling of said clothing was followed by a series of quick purchases of sweaters

It was as if the universe was playing some horrible, ironic trick on Nathalie. For the first time in years, Gabriel was attentive and affectionate towards others, and yet he seldom had the physical or mental capacity to participate in normal, day-to-day interactions. It was almost physically painfully seeing him look crestfallen and so deeply lost when he encountered the smallest of obstacles and inevitably realized that such tasks were easy for others. The memory of Gabriel crying in frustration because he couldn’t button his shirt on his own would probably stick with Nathalie for a long time. At least in those cases Nathalie could figure out what was upsetting Gabriel. Far too often she was left clueless as to why Gabriel might be in distress. On some bad days, Nathalie felt like there was so little she could actually do to assuage the poor man’s pain. 

Soon after Gabriel had been released from the hospital, detectives and police officers had shown up at the Agreste mansion in hopes of gleaning some information on the circumstances of Gabriel’s disappearing act. Of course, Nathalie complied and allowed a supervised interview in hopes of seeming cooperative and inauspicious. The officers had been able to find little to no useful information aside from the extent of Gabriel’s mental degradation. Many of the officers seemed visibly uncomfortable at the sight of a famous fashion designer scrabbling about on all fours like a wild animal while trilling and babbling random words he had recently learned. So, at the very least, the police could be kept largely at bay until Gabriel was able to string together a proper sentence or look into a mirror without screaming or crying hysterically. 

The nebulous unknown of what might happen if the police found Emile loomed over Nathalie. Not only would such a discovery further connect the Agrestes to Hawkmoth, it would be a massive emotional blow to Adrien. Every time a reporter made up some incredibly inaccurate theory about why Gabriel’s clothes and blood were found in Hawkmoth’s lair, Nathalie breathed a sigh of relief. Luckily, most speculation painted the Agrestes and Nathalie as victims, who had likely been harassed and extorted by Hawkmoth. The theories would likely run even wilder in days and weeks to come even with a well-planned release of information. 

Now, Nathalie was the sole bearer of a terrible truth, and she desperately wished that she had simply kept her head down and didn’t investigate years ago. Gabriel no longer seemed to know about Hawkmoth, the Miraculous, or Emilie’s body entombed beneath miles of concrete and shame. Whenever anyone or anything relating to the highly dangerous magical bullshit that Gabriel had engaged in before his disappearance was referenced, Gabriel simply had the same perturbed yet intrigued response to any topic that he no longer comprehended.

Nathalie was now learning that knowledge was a terrible burden to bear alone, and she felt terribly afraid of the consequences of sharing it.


	2. Gabriel gets Souped Up

“Can… walk… myself!”

“While you’re giving a valiant effort, you really can’t right now without potentially falling and hurting yourself…”

“Fine”

The fellow currently fiddling with the cream colored cards in his hands listened to the muffled voices just outside the door. The soles of his shoes slid with little resistance across the tile floor as he shuffled his feet. After a few moments, the door opened and the man gave a jovial wave to the two people who had now entered the room. 

Gabriel Agreste trailed behind Nathalie somewhat sullenly in a wheelchair. Nathalie waved back while Gabriel pouted. 

“Sorry for the slight delay.”

Nathalie then turned to Gabriel, and looked him squarely in the eyes.

“Will you be alright on your own?”

“Am… good…”

“Alright, I’ll be on my way then. I’ll return by the scheduled end-time for this meeting. Good luck.”

Nathalie briskly walked out, a slight breeze trailing behind her, created by her rapid movement’s displacement of air. 

Then, the briefcase toting man waved Gabriel over with an amicable grin on his face. After some fumbled attempts at greetings, they got down to business.

“Alright Mr. Agreste, let’s try the flash cards again…”

The mere sight of the feathery grey form filled him with disgust and terror. His upper lip curled into a snarl as he forced the accursed word from his mouth.

“Pigeon”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes in suspicion at the flashcard, as he was fairly certain that the cursed Pigeon-bird flashcard had been already used several times this session, far more than any other flash card. The lanky brunette in a tweed coat handling the flash cards shot him an encouraging grin. Something about the man’s vaguely avian appearance and penchant for pigeons seemed oddly (almost unnervingly) familiar to Gabriel. Perhaps it was simply because Gabriel’s instinctual response to flee predators that regularly fed on butterflies had developed into a phobia of birds.

“Wonderful! Now, this one is pretty abstract!”

Another flash card was produced from the therapist’s bag. This time it had images of people smiling at each other while helping each other and engaging in various social activities. 

“Friends”

“Fuh… rend”

“Good, now, do you understand what a friend is?”

“Person… nice… and… helps… person… I… I have… good… feelings for?”

“I… yeah, you seem to have a good grasp on the concept!”

The speech therapist put the flash cards away in his briefcase, which was decorated with a strange silver bird-shaped engraving, and cheerfully clapped his hands together. 

“I suppose that will be all for the day. You’ve been doing absolutely splendid, Mr. Agreste! Perhaps we’ll even have you beginning to read and write again by the end of the month!”

Unsure of how to properly respond, Gabriel smiled, shrugged, and wheeled himself out of the room backwards, nearly falling out of his chair several times in the process. The therapist cheerfully waved goodbye as Gabriel slowly made his way out and through the doors. After a few moments, Nathalie poked her head through the doors. Upon noticing the therapist still standing alone in the room she made her way through the doors fully and began to speak to him.

“Thank you, Doctor Ramier, your patience, expertise, and discretion… have been invaluable”

Doctor Ramier gave Nathalie a pleasant smile whilst they shared a firm handshake. Nathalie had mastered a firm, business-like handshake thanks to dealing with investors, lawyers, police officers, and reporters in droves. She had come to believe that a handshake says a lot about a person. Doctor Ramier’s handshake said that he used a lot of hand lotion and was good at throwing things. Nathalie did not know how to use this information, but she’s mentally add it to her now extensive handshake/personal information file.

“It’s my pleasure, Ms. Sancouer, I went in to this line of work to help others. Mr. Agreste has been progressing splendidly! How have things been?”

“Well, he’s in generally good health physically and seems to be improving, but I have a great many concerns about him. He seems to have an irregular sleep pattern and an unnerving ability to get into high-up or dangerous places. I’m not sure how he does this since he can barely walk… I think he somehow rapidly scampers around on all fours… I’m also worried that his recovery will stagnate at a point where he still isn’t able to effectively care for himself… What if he never re-learns how to brush his teeth or do multiplication? The police and the media want answers and I’m not sure if he can ever give that to them…”

“No, I meant how have things been for you, Ms. Sancour… you may not be my patient, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be concerned for your wellbeing as well!”

“Things have been… stressful… to say the least… I have so many responsibilities to handle and so many things to worry about that I feel like I never really get a moment’s peace. Sometimes I feel like I just want to run off somewhere and retire, but I can’t go back now… I can’t just throw in the towel and let everything fall into ruin even though it sometimes feels like it’s already there. I’m not sure if I’m handling things right… Professionalism was thrown out the window at some point and now I’m emotionally invested and I don’t know how to act and I feel like this whole situation is a shitshow on tour and I’m the bus driver but I didn’t know I was until I was handed the keys and the guy who should have the GPS directions is passed out in the backseat!”

Ramier nodded his head and handed Nathalie a bird-shaped quiche.

“That sounds terrible Ms. Sancour, perhaps you could find a way to relieve your stress, maybe even find someone trustworthy to help… until then, have a quiche in these trying times.”

Nathalie quirked an eyebrow, but accepted the quiche and politely thanked the man. The quiche might be of use later. 

Doctor Ramier pulled off his lab coat, revealing a second, tweed coat underneath and stuffed the lab coat into his briefcase. Nathalie followed Doctor Ramier out of the room and watched him frolick away with Gabriel. The fedora-clad man was surprisingly light on his feet.

“Farewell, Madam, Monsieur! I’m off to try and get a grant for my research into pigeon social behavior and intelligence! The university will surely see reason this time!”

Soon enough the pigeon-y man was no longer in eye-shot. Gabriel turned towards Nathalie, which was rather difficult since his wheelchair was facing away from her and stuck between a potted plant and a wall.

“What a… nice… man”

“Yes, he’s quite the character…. His fixation on pigeons is a little unnerving, though.”

Gabriel shuddered at the mere thought of those feathery menaces. If he was ever in close quarters with one, he was fairly certain he’d lose his shit. Encounters with birds, in his experience, involved risk of life and limb. 

“Um…. little help… please?”

Nathalie tried and failed to pull Gabriel free. After a few moments of contemplation, she used the quiche as a wedge to free a slightly bewildered Gabriel.

The quiche was rock-hard and surprisingly effective. Nathalie and Gabriel were soon on their way, forgetting the quiche. There the quiche remained for many years and witnessed many things, but that is for another story.

————-______________————

Gabriel was sitting alone in a barren kitchen. A spoon was held loosely in his hand and a small bowl of cinnamon-oatmeal sat on the silver table in front of him. If he focused on his peripheral vision, Gabriel could barely make out the silhouette of plants and gently flapping wings. 

Gabriel looked down and saw little white-ish objects lazily sinking into the oatmeal he had been eating. A strange sense of dread filled him and his mouth now felt oddly empty. The oatmeal began to writhe and wriggle, making wet slurping noises as it did so. Gabriel watched in horror and morbid curiosity as the beige mush pulled its way from the bowl, revealing far too much oatmeal than that bowl should have ever been capable of holding. A slimy trail was left in the oatmeal's wake as it slid off the table. It almost seemed to be breathing. The squirming mass soon rose and shaped itself into the visage of a vaguely familiar person. Gabriel had only seen the man in brief glimpses he got of news reports on TV (that didn’t make a lick of sense to him) or when Adrien tried to teach him how to use a computer (which was a challenge since Gabriel still didn’t know how to read).

“H-hawkmoth?”

The OatMoth gave Gabriel a lipless grin, revealing two rows of shiny teeth, familiar teeth, Gabriel’s teeth. Gabriel became starkly aware of the fact that he now lacked teeth, which was a deeply unpleasant sensation. Unlike his experience of being a butterfly where he simply devoid of a mouth (a proboscis was sufficient for sucking up fluids), Gabriel was now left with toothless gums and a deep sensation of discomfort. 

The OatMoth absorbed Gabriel into its toothy, cinnamon-flavored mass. All Gabriel could do was weakly flail his limbs as his lungs filled with oatey sludge and teeth. No matter how hard Gabriel tried to dig his way out, he was always met with more oatmeal. He felt like he’d been in there for hours. The excessive cinnamon made his eyes burn and water.

Gabriel fell into unconsciousness. As darkness bled into Gabriel’s vision he could hear distant laughter. He desperately wanted to cry out, to beg for help or mercy, but the words had been stolen from him and his voice smothered.

Everything hurt terribly.

Gabriel gave up.

What was the point?

He was doomed anyways.

————-______________————

Plagg was a simple Kwami with simple needs. As long as he had cheese, a warm place to sleep, and a friend or two, he was happy. Things had been tumultuous in his holder’s life lately, though, and that irked Plagg somewhat. After the human boy’s father disappeared (which was good riddance in Plagg’s “humble” opinion), Adrien had been distressed for a while before slipping into an odd sense of normalcy. Now that Adrien’s father had returned, the kid’s life had been upended all over again. While Plagg couldn’t relate to the whole strained relationship with a parent thing due to having no progenitors, he could sympathize with his holder. The kid was obviously torn up inside about the state his father was in and unsure of how to act around him. Plagg hadn’t seen of the man outside of times when he’d hitched a ride in Adrien’s pocket or bag. From the sparse knowledge Plagg had of the man, whatever he’d gone through during his disappearance had caused drastic changes in the man’s demeanor. Something had crumbled the designer’s aloof, impeccable persona and left a frightened man desperately clinging to what dregs of sanity and self-respect he had left in its wake.

Plagg has some suspicions that Adrien’s father was the cursed butterfly that the Kwamii had helped return to human form, but he couldn’t be sure. Humans were really difficult to tell apart, after all. Not to mention the cursed fellow ran off (or rather, fell out of a window) before they could get a good look at them.

Regardless, Plagg was concerned about how Adrien would cope with his father’s return in the long run. At least he didn’t have the stress of Hawkmoth being active on top of everything. Mundane villains didn’t generally carry the same risk of reality itself being torn to shreds as fighting between Miraculous holders did. Plagg just hoped that Nooroo was safe, wherever he was, and that Hawkmoth was gone for good. 

Worry crept over Plagg as he tried to sleep. Sleep was a pointless exercise for a being that existed before brains or dreams came into being, but it was an oddly soothing practice (apparently multicellular mortals really knew where it’s at with their whole “go unconscious for a while” thing). After an hour or two of staring blankly at the ceiling, Plagg decided that a nice big hunk of cheese would settle his thoughts and metaphorical stomach. 

The cat Kwami hovered out of Adrien’s room and down the stairs, making his way towards the kitchen. On his way down, Plagg passed a handful of overturned potted plants and some suspicious puddles of indeterminate fluid. Was it water? Was it blood? Plagg honestly didn’t care. Regardless of what it was, if any got on him he could just phase through it. Plagg was glad he didn’t have blood.

Quiet creaking and rustling noises emanated from the kitchen. Plagg, now on his guard, kept to the shadows as he slunk into the dark room to investigate. There, crouched on all fours, was Gabriel Agreste, raiding the fridge in a set of fire-engine red pajamas so garish Plagg could have sworn the sight of it was searing away his retinas. The man kept reaching in to the refrigerator, flinching away from the appliance with a horrified grimace nearly every time he’d reached his hand inside. So far he only seemed to have acquired a jug of orange juice and some applesauce. Midway through attempting to lap up some apple sauce with his tongue, Gabriel became aware of Plagg’s presence and let out an alarmed chirp. 

The Kwami and ex-butterfly stared at each other blankly for a moment, caught in a haze of confusion and panic.

“So uhhhh.... What brings you to a place like this at.... 3 AM....”

Gabriel cocked his head to the side, fruit juice dripping down his slightly stubbled chin.

“Food.... food... good... hungry...”

Plagg nodded sagely at the unkempt man and grabbed a large block of cheese from the open fridge. 

“Ahhhh.... okay... I won’t tell if you won’t”

Gabriel nodded jerkily before scuttling like an oversized insect towards a lower cabinet, leaving the fridge door ajar. While trying to reach for the cabinet, Gabriel fell flat on his face. Plagg drifted over and pushed the cabinet door open with a resounding creak. The sound of the cabinet door opening echoed through the room, and the pair flinched at the surprisingly loud sound. Gabriel lifted himself off the floor and haphazardly grabbed a can of onion soup before falling backwards. A sharp pain shot through his backside as his tailbone smacked against the floor, and Gabriel bit back a cry of alarm. At least he’d obtained the delicious ambrosial soup.

Gabriel held the can aloft in victory while quietly chanting the word “soup” over and over. There was a wild, almost fanatical glint in his eye as he gazed upon his prized. Plagg drifted lazily next to him, attempting to shove as much cheese down his throat as possible. Just as Plagg was unhinging his jaw like a furry snake to swallow a particularly large chunk of cheese, he was broken out of his cheese-induced feeding frenzy by the sound of Gabriel’s enthusiastic chanting.

“Um…. yeah… that’s soup Mr. Adrien’s Dad.”

“Soup… beautiful…. soup… delicious…”

“You do realize you need to open the soup can if you want to eat it, right?”

Gabriel blanched at the realization that he had no idea of how to open a can of soup. Hell, he couldn’t even open a water bottle on his own. 

Still, he attempted to open the can of soup by biting it and banging it against the counter, succeeding in only denting the can and making himself cry.

“Just… want soup… can’t… even… can’t open…worthless…woe is me”

Pity and discomfort at the sight of a once proud man wailing about soup and it’s apparent relation to his self-worth was a powerful motivator. It only took a few moments of watching Gabriel’s flagrant display of his emotional distress for Plagg to start rifling through the cabinets for a can opener. Eventually, he found the can opener and clumsily hefted it over his tiny shoulder. After some fiddling around, Plagg managed to open the can and pry away the lid. It was a rather mystifying and wondrous phenomenon since Plagg didn’t have any hands or fingers to speak of. 

Gabriel grabbed the soup can and began slurping up the soup. In between gulps of the delicious onion-y liquid Gabriel gave Plagg and appreciative smile. 

“T-thank you… cat… friend…”

Gabriel wept tears of joy as he dumped more soup into his mouth, taking swigs from the can like it was a shot of hard liquor and he was a raging alcoholic. The soup may have been lukewarm, but Gabriel honestly didn’t care. He was still rather warm from spending the last couple hours wrapped up in several blankets, after all. 

Neither Plagg nor Gabriel spoke much the rest of the encounter, and they parted ways when sunlight began to pour through the windows of an adjacent room. Gabriel instinctively crept towards the warmth and the light while Plagg retreated to Adrien’s bedroom. Adrien had to wake up early for school, after all, and Plagg made a very good second alarm clock. 

————-______________————

Nathalie found Gabriel splayed out on the living room floor that morning with his face pressed against the glass of a nearby window. Even though warmth now came from inside him, the sun’s heat still drew him in and comforted him. 

At the sound of Nathalie’s footsteps, Gabriel lazily rolled over the face her with a contented grin on his face. Any worries that had sprung from finding the man’s room empty were banished, and Nathalie was glad that she’d locked all doors leading to the roof. While she was strongly considering locking the door to Gabriel’s room at night, she was worried that doing so might result in him panicking due to feeling trapped or being unable to get help promptly if he had some sort of emergency. 

Then, Nathalie noticed the small bruise beginning to form on his forehead, and frowned.

“Did you headbutt your door open again, or did you trip and fall while trying to walk?”

Gabriel awkwardly averted his gaze from Nathalie’s, making a quiet trilling noise. 

“The physical therapist will help you learn how to walk again… and use doorknobs… in the meantime could you please use the wheelchair more often… I know you prefer walking on all fours, but the floor is slippery and your limbs aren’t in great shape… you could get seriously hurt…”

An awkward silence hung between them before Gabriel nodded sheepishly and sat up. Nathalie left the room and came back with a wheelchair. Then, she slowly approached Gabriel, making sure to make plenty of noise and stay in his line of vision before holding out her hand. Gabriel took her hand and Nathalie carefully helped him into the wheelchair. She winced at the sight of a rather painful-looking scrape on Gabriel’s hand. While it was already scabbed over, Nathalie made note to inspect, clean, and bandage the wound later.

“We need to get you ready quickly, you have an appointment with Doctor Ramier in an hour.”

“Gives… new… words?”

“Exactly, he’s going to teach you a lot of new, very important words…”

“Can… pick clothes?”

“Yes, you can pick out your clothes for today.”

“Wonderful! Prettycolorsgoodfriends!”

Gabriel’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. By the time he and Nathalie had made their way to his room, he was practically vibrating with excitement.

After perusing his closet for several minutes, Gabriel ended up picking out a bright orange sweater, red and blue striped socks, and green pants. He chirped excitedly, clutching the vibrantly colored clothes to his chest. Even if he couldn’t see color like he used to, such “expressive” hues reminded him of fruit, flowers, and other butterflies. Nathalie suppressed a sigh at the sight of the bizarre fashion choice the former designer had made. At least he wouldn’t be seen by the general public wearing such a garish outfit. At least he was happy and genuinely excited about something. 

While Gabriel was absentmindedly examining the stitches on the pants he’d picked out, Nathalie drew a bath for him. She made sure the water wasn’t too cold, as she’d learned soon after Gabriel had returned that the man was now terrified of the cold. He’d recoiled away from air vents and vehemently refused to eat ice cream. 

Nathalie sat outside the bathroom, reading a slightly worn copy of  _ Atonement _ . The book sat heavy in her hands as she turned and meticulously smoothed out each page. Half of her attention was on the novel, and the other half was on the sounds emanating from the bathroom. If things got too quiet, Nathalie would have to rush in to make sure Gabriel wasn’t drowning. She wasn’t planning on burying him anytime soon. 

After some time had passed, a weak knocking sound came from the other side of the door. Nathalie opened the door and Gabriel slowly wheeled himself out, followed by a cloud of steam. His hair was still tangled and matted against his head due to its dampness, but it was clean. The sweater Gabriel was now wearing might have been on backwards due to the odd shape of the collar against his neck, but it was difficult to tell for sure due to a lack of patterning.

He fiddled clumsily with the hairbrush in his hands.

“You need help brushing your hair, don’t you?”

Gabriel’s face was flushed with shame, as he glared down at the brush in his hands. Precisely manipulating tools, especially smaller ones, with his hands was still very difficult for him. 

Nathalie loosely clasped her hand around Gabriel’s and guided him through the motions, making sure to focus on particularly knotted or matted areas. Once Gabriel seemed to have the basic motions down and the worst snarls has been brushed out, Nathalie released her grasp on Gabriel’s hand and let him finish on his own.

Soon enough, Gabriel had finished brushing his hair and carefully put it away. He briefly rubbed his chin before scowling slightly as the unpleasant texture of stubble. 

“Hm? Would you like to try shaving? Well, unless you’d prefer facial hair…”

Gabriel shook his head in vehement refusal.

The thought of something so sharp touching his face made Gabriel deeply uncomfortable, even if it was Nathalie holding it. While on some level Gabriel knew that the razor was fairly safe and any injury it might cause would be inconvenient or uncomfortable, he felt like his human skin was alarmingly soft and vulnerable. At times Gabriel desperately missed the protection of an exoskeleton, even if it had decreased his flexibility. 

After making “small talk”, which mainly consisted of Nathalie telling Gabriel the names for things and Gabriel attempting to ask questions with his limited vocabulary, Doctor Ramier was let into the mansion to begin Gabriel’s speech therapy and linguistic education session.

The session was fairly uneventful until they began to cover words pertaining to personal relationships, especially familial ones. It was at that point Gabriel started recognizing words Adrien had often said to him. Gabriel fell silent and stared out a nearby window, too lost in thought to notice what was happening outside. 

“Adrien… my… son?”

“Yes”

The realization slowly dawned upon him as the various words and meanings shifted into place in his mind. Various expressions and conversations made so much more sense to Gabriel now. He had a son, and he was ecstatic. 

Butterflies didn’t typically live long enough to see their offspring hatch, and the few that did could rarely find their now grown children after hibernating and migrating. Butterflies simply weren’t built to raise their own children. Most likely didn’t even bother thinking or caring about their young once the eggs were laid on a fairly safe plant. Gabriel was not one of those butterflies for some reason or another. Perhaps it was because Gabriel was desperately grasping for a frame of reference for the fledgling social connections he was forming or him never getting a chance to form non-familial social connections like most butterflies do during migration and group hibernation and roosting. Whatever the reason, Gabriel found himself getting overwhelmed by the mere idea that he had a healthy child that seemed to be willing and able to interact with him.

Gabriel decided to put contemplating how ancient he must be to have a child this large on the back burner and instead focus on how wondrous it was that he had a real chance to get to know his child and be there for them. Not only did he have at least one living child, said child was in regular contact with him.

Gabriel couldn’t help but wonder what happened to the other members of Adrien’s clutch. As far as Gabriel knew, all children hatched in clutches of dozens or even hundreds of eggs like butterflies did. While he hoped for the best, he knew the harsh reality was that a good portion of them had likely been eaten by predators or succumbed to disease. At the very least he could hope that some of his hypothetical other surviving children had grown up to be healthy and capable like Adrien, finding new territories to roost in. 

Gabriel mentally latched onto one of his first tangible connections to his “new” life as a human. His newly reformed human mind was desperate for social connections while the remnants of his butterfly worldview tried to make sense of how and why the humans he interacted with socialized with him. For once Gabriel had a frame of reference for a major part of his human life. For once he could reconcile his human and butterfly understandings of the world regarding a topic. Both humans and butterflies had young that needed to be kept in a safe environment since they started out very small and helpless.

Gabriel had paid little mind to the conversation that had sprung up between Nathalie and Doctor Ramier, as he was still quite caught up in his own thoughts. At some point he’d quietly wheeled his way back to his room to further ruminate on this development.

As he mentally went over his interactions with Adrien since he’d been brought home from the hospital, something odd stuck out to him. Despite Adrien’s kindness and affection there had been a strange, almost fearful distance in many of his actions toward Gabriel. The teen often hesitated before speaking to him and rarely looked him in the eye, having expressions Gabriel could now identify as shocked whenever Gabriel showed him affection or even acknowledge him in a positive manner. Gabriel desperately hoped that Adrien’s reactions were simply because Gabriel was acting differently than the man he had been in the pictures or because Gabriel didn’t remember that Adrien was his son. The mere thought that Gabriel might have mistreated Adrien at some point and created this strange gulf between them stung. Gabriel desperately hoped that he hadn’t somehow hurt one of the first people who he could remember showing him kindness. Gabriel did not want to remember the person he was before if that person had been cruel, especially to a child (hell, especially his own child).

Gabriel was startled out of his thoughts by a quiet knocking on the doorframe. Just outside Gabriel’s room stood Nathalie with an unreadable expression on her face and a strange heaviness in her eyes. 

“Are you alright?”

“M’ f-fine”

“Adrien’s returned from school… I… I was wondering if you would like to see him.”

Gabriel silently nodded, trying to keep his thoughts and emotions in check. His chest felt tight and his eyes stung with unshed tears. Nathalie left and returned with Adrien, who had a weak, apprehensive smile on his face. Gabriel wondered if Nathalie had told Adrien what Gabriel now knew. Despite how desperately he wanted to speak to Adrien, to express the thoughts and feelings swirling about in his mind, he didn’t yet have the words to do so. Emotions he couldn’t yet describe overpowered his ability to articulate what little he could with the words he didn’t know, leaving him babbling nearly-incoherently. Tears began to spill down his cheeks and his hands trembled. Adrien’s expression shifted to one of blatant concern, as he gingerly approached Gabriel as one might a wounded animal. Adrien held out his hand, and Gabriel reached out in turn, holding onto it like a lifeline. Eventually, the two engaged in an awkward, but genuine hug. 

Adrien tried not to think too hard about how fragile his father felt in his arms. Sobs wracked Gabriel’s body as he clung to his son, almost afraid to let him go. 


	3. Gabriel Takes a Nap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really need a nap, right now. Maybe I should start going to bed earlier...
> 
> (I hope everyone finds this chapter good/entertaining!)

Spring’s hold on Paris was waning and summer was slowly taking its place. Full, green leaves and even occasionally fruit were quickly replacing blossoms and feeble fledgling foliage that had decorated tree branches. 

** **

Two teens sat under one of the many trees dotting the Parisian landscape. Nino was casually declining against the sturdy metal backing of a park bench while he wrote down ideas for the group project he and Adrien were working on.

** **

“Adrien, my dude, this idea is going to require a ridiculous amount of toothpicks. Like… Marinette probably knows a guy who can sell them to us, but still.”

** **

Marinette had a lot of unexpected connections that Nino did not want to know about for the sake of his own sanity. He was fairly certain she had the personal phone numbers of the owners of every craft store owner in the eastern hemisphere.

** **

Adrien nodded absentmindedly and produced a long list of necessary art supplies and calculations needed for the project.

** **

“Hey, do you want to come over to my place to work on our physics project this time?”

** **

Nino shrugged and cocked his head to the side.

** **

“Yeah, sure dude, you’re still allowed to, like, invite people over, right?”

** **

“Nathalie’s fine with people coming over as long as they don’t agitate my father and promise not blab about his condition to the press.”

** **

The pair packed up their things and began their trek back to the Agreste manor.

** **

“So, how’s AA going. You’re still attending right?”

** **

“Yeah, totally bro, even though there hasn’t been an akuma attack in a super long time, people are still, like, dealing with their trauma and stuff. The dudes and dudettes at AA are like totally bummed out about Subwoofer, though. The little dude sorta became our unofficial mascot, bro.”

** **

“Have you figured out what happened to him?”

** **

“Nah bro, there’s been no sign of him… I kinda think he might have kicked the bucket though, butterflies only live for, like, a year max… I totally miss my little buddy…”

** **

“That’s a shame… at least you made him happy and took good care of him while he was still alive…”

** **

Nino’s eyes teared up and he gave a wistful chuckle. His room had felt oddly empty these past few weeks without the presence of the rather odd butterfly. On occasion, he’d entertained the idea of getting a new pet, but he wasn’t sure if the new pet would be a poor replacement. He didn’t want to potentially impose his expectations based on what Subwoofer had been like as a pet onto some random, innocent animal. If he did get another pet someday, it would probably be after he’d dealt with his grief in a healthy manner and would be able to have a relationship with that pet that could exist independently, free of expectations, unshackled by his relationship with his previous pet.

** **

“Yeah, and like, maybe my little buddy is off enjoying whatever afterlife butterflies have… Anyways, how are you doing, dude?”

** **

“I’m doing fine, I suppose. School’s been pretty much the same except a lot of people are either asking me loads of questions about my father or sorta walking on eggshells around me.”

** **

“Aw, yeah, I kinda noticed that…”

** **

Nino awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck and motioned for Adrien to go on. The other teen fiddled with a loose thread on the strap of his backpack and sighed.

** **

“I mean… and now… father’s actually paying attention to me and it feels kinda weird, especially since half the time he acts like an almost completely different person from the guy I grew up with. When he was found he just… couldn’t take care of himself… he was practically helpless... At least he’s making progress now. He’s been trying to form phrases or short sentences, and his physical therapist said he might even be able to walk with a cane without falling soon… well… if his legs don’t need to be re-broken so they can heal in the right shape.”

** **

“Aw yeah, dude, it seems like your dad’s recovery matters a lot to you. Yikes on the broken legs thing, though...”

** **

“Well, I guess it’s because I was starting to worry that he’d died before he showed up again… it still feels a little surreal, having him back, alive. For a while before he came back I had started to come to grips with the fact that I might be an orphan. I’m guess I’m just glad one of my parents isn’t dead or missing anymore, even if he has a lot of memory issues and can’t be my legal guardian anymore.”

** **

Nino nodded and hummed sympathetically in response. The rest of the walk to the manor was brief and a bit quiet once the conversation tapered off. 

** **

Once the pair had entered the looming building, they made a beeline for Nathalie’s office.

** **

Nathalie was lounging behind her desk, a towering stack of completed contracts and licenses wobbling precariously at her elbow. She seemed thoroughly engrossed in the bar of soap she was carving with a shimmering, wickedly sharp pocket knife. In front of her was an intricately carved soap model of the Eiffel Tower and several tiny soap animals. Thin shavings of pastel colored soap littered the surrounding tabletop and floor. Upon hearing the sound of footsteps approaching, she swung her ergonomic office chair around to face Adrien and Nino as they walked in.

** **

“Oh, hello Adrien. I might be a bit late to pick you up from school on Thursday. I’m thinking about setting up an appointment with an optometrist and some other kind of specialist on that day, since your father has been going on about how he ‘can’t see all colors anymore’ and ‘hears from the wrong place’”

** **

Adrien winced and Nino stood awkwardly in the doorway, feeling like he shouldn’t be privy to this conversation.

** **

“That’s… concerning…”

** **

“Nothing seemed to be wrong with his eyes or ears from the general check he got when he… returned… but it’s better to be safe than sorry… hm… maybe the problem is with his brain and it’s not properly processing sensory information quite right...

** **

Nathalie’s eyes drifted over to Nino and she tilted her head up slightly in a gesture that vaguely resembled a nod of acknowledgment before turning her gaze back to Adrien.

** **

“Oh, I see you’ve brought a friend along! You’re Nino, right? Here is a nondisclosure agreement for you to sign.”

** **

Nino took a double-take as Nathalie slid a small stack of papers and a pen across the desk towards him.

** **

“A… nondisclosure agreement?”

** **

“I need to make sure nothing, and I mean nothing, gets leaked to the tabloids. I’ve managed to ward the paparazzi away with restraining orders and threats of harsh legal action, but if they get their slimy hands on some ‘juicy’ information they’ll start going to ridiculous lengths to get more… the nondisclosure agreement acts as a safety measure and legal incentive to keep quiet.”

** **

Nino signed the nondisclosure agreement, and felt a bit baffled by how extensive it was. It seemed like Nathalie had been quite thorough in closing any possible legal loopholes.

** **

After everything had been signed, Nathalie had bid them adieu and Nino politely tipped his cap in response. Nino and Adrien made their way through the vaguely ominous labyrinth of halls and doorways to get to Adrien’s room. About halfway through their journey, they passed a dark room with its door ajar.

** **

Adrien peeked his head inside and gave a friendly wave.

** **

“Hey, I know you’re in there! How has your day been? Are you feeling alright?”

** **

A quiet chirping emanated from the half-lit room. Nino could just barely make out the silhouette of a figure perched on top of a set of drawers in a loose crouching position. Before Nino could react to the presence of the figure, they leapt off the drawers and landed on the lacquered floor with a thump. The mess of gangly limbs and sparkly blue fabric began making clicking noises and flailing about until Adrien rushed over helped them into a nearby wheelchair. 

** **

The person chirped excitedly at Adrien, making dramatic hand gestures as if he was making a particularly intense speech. Adrien gently put a hand on their shoulder and nodded sympathetically. After a moment or so, the person seemed to notice Nino and turned towards him. 

** **

Almost everything about the person seemed awkward and uncertain, like they weren’t quite comfortable in their own skin. Hair that may have once been in some sort of undercut had now begun to grow out into an awkwardly spiky and uneven style. Glasses sat slightly askew on the bridge of their nose and their clothes seemed a little too big for them, almost as if they had lost some weight recently and were still in the process of regaining it.

** **

Their mouth pulled itself into an unsteady smile and they let out a series of odd clicking and chirping noises. Adrien sighed.

** **

“Please remember to use your words father… I know it’s hard, but we can’t really understand you right now”

** **

The comment was met with a jerky nod and an expression verging on embarrassment. 

** **

Realization hit Nino like a double-decker bus of confusion and discomfort. The guy currently staring wide-eyed through slightly crooked glasses at him was the renowned fashion designer, former missing person, and all around buzzkill Gabriel Agreste. To Nino, the man was nearly unrecognizable without a scowl or hair slicked back so far it was selling moonshine to a flapper in a speakeasy. The darkness of the surrounding room along with the man’s stubble and slight facial scarring didn’t help his recognizability either, especially since Nino hadn’t ever really bothered to remember much of what Gabriel’s face looked like.

** **

“Sorry… Hello… new person…. what is… name?”

** **

Gabriel’s words fell slow and deliberate from his mouth, as if he was meticulously trying to get each syllable right. He hadn’t blinked in an abnormally long time, in fact, he seldom seemed to blink at all.

** **

“Um…. yeah, I’m Nino”

** **

Gabriel nodded in acknowledgment, mentally adding “Nino” to the list of names he’d have to remember. While he found the human system of giving people spoken names strange, it made sense for creatures incapable of flapping their wings or releasing pheromones at will to find some other manners of identifying themselves. Something about this “Nino” was oddly familiar, although Gabriel couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Perhaps he had met the lad in his forgotten and vaguely defined “before” life or even during his life as a butterfly, which he still had some muddled memories of. Faces were so hard to remember when your eyes and nervous system were not designed to identify them. 

** **

“Oh? Adrien’s… friend?”

** **

For some reason, Gabriel’s movements seemed awkward and unnatural, like he wasn’t quite sure of how to move in his own body. The smile he gave was stiff and unsteady, yet not a farce, as it clearly reached his eyes. 

** **

Nino wasn’t quite sure whether the stiff, almost animalistic behavior or Gabriel Agreste smiling and attempting to be friendly was more unnerving and out of character for the man. This was probably the first time Nino had seen Adrien’s father with a facial expression that didn’t resemble a constipated Betta fish. Perhaps the man simply had resting fish face.

** **

Adrien quickly left the room to start preparing lunch and get some supplies for the physics project. 

** **

“Nino… know… Adrien… alot?”

** **

Nino awkwardly shifted his weight between his feet, unsure of how to respond to Gabriel’s attempt at conversation. 

** **

“Um, like, yeah. Why do you ask?”

** **

Gabriel nervously fiddled with the hem of his collar and furrowed his brow, trying to piece together the words he needed to explain. 

** **

“Wan… wanted to… know… thing… Adrien… like… wanted to…good… father… make Adrien… happy…”

** **

In that brief moment, Nino almost felt bad for the man, who seemed to curl into himself and sink deeper into the fabric of his clothes the more he struggled to speak.

** **

Still, Nino doubted that Gabriel would appreciate pity, which would easily come off as being condescending, even if he was being uncharacteristically friendly, which wasn’t saying much.

** **

“Y’know what, dude, I do know Adrien pretty well, so I can, like, also tell you stuff he’d really appreciate… but like… just as a pro-tip… you can totally make someone happy by showing investment in learning about their interests and spending time with them, by like, hanging out together and stuff. Don’t like, forbid cool stuff like parties…like… ever dude..”

** **

Gabriel nodded, listening intently. 

** **

Nino resolved himself to attempting to treat the oblivious man like a friendly stranger rather than the taciturn stick-in-the-mud and overall shitty person he had once been, if only for Adrien’s sake. Gabriel would get a chance to redeem himself in Nino’s eyes, but he was on thin fucking ice. Hell, perhaps Nino could even help him learn how to be an amicable and somewhat reasonable person. Gabriel quietly muttered to himself, wringing his hands. His eyes suddenly widened like he’d come to a sudden realization.

** **

“Does Adrien… like puddle?”

** **

“No, I’m, like, not sure why he would…”

** **

“Hmmm… but puddles… good drink…”

** **

“What do you mean? Puddles aren’t a good drink!”

** **

“Oh... so… when… see puddle… do… not shove face… and drink?”

** **

“Uh… no, dude.”

** **

“Ah…. so… not normal…”

** **

“Do you do that dude? You do realize that puddles are, like, really dirty?”

** **

“But… full of… nutrients…”

** **

“Dude, there’s, like, dirt and stuff in it”

** **

“Nutrients!”

** **

“Do you want to get dysentery?”

** **

“What’s… that…?”

** **

“Like, a really nasty disease, dude.”

** **

Gabriel blanched at the thought of potentially catching some horrible disease. Some deep instinct brought up fears of caterpillars liquefying in their own exoskeletons, parasites sucking butterflies dry, and spores overtaking wings. He hugged himself, shivering slightly.

** **

“Okay… make… sense…”

** **

Nino sat down in a nearby chair, crossing one leg over the other and making a vague gesture.

** **

“Adrien likes stuff like croissants, cats, and anime, not ... drinking from puddles… I… are you okay, dude?”

** **

“Not… really…”

** **

Gabriel winced and covered his face with his hands, whimpering. At that moment, Adrien rushed back into the room carrying a plate of sandwiches and an armful of art supplies. He placed the sandwiches on a nearby table and turned towards Gabriel with a vaguely disappointed look on his face.

** **

“Father, you stole the blender again, didn’t you?”

** **

Gabriel averted his gaze from Adrien and stared intensely at his own feet, looking like he wanted to sink into the floor.

** **

“Maybe…”

** **

“Father, I’m not mad at you… I’m just worried… why do you keep taking the blender?”

** **

“Want… make… food soft… like soup… don’t know… how… blenderrr… go...”

** **

Gabriel sent Adrien a pleading look. He honestly hadn’t been able to make sense of how the blender worked. All he knew was that it made liquid food and that he was sick of chewing. 

** **

“Fine…I’ll make your sandwich into a smoothie. Just don’t take the blender next time you want something liquefied, ok? Ask for some help.”

** **

Then, Gabriel pointed under the bed with Nino and Adrien’s gaze turned towards it. Sitting under the table, gleaming softly in the light from the hallway, was a blender. Adrien and Nino both briefly wondered how they didn’t notice the kitchen appliance earlier.

** **

After a few minutes and some loud blender noises, Adrien was able to give Gabriel his sandwich in liquid form. At the sight of the cup full of liquefied food, Gabriel began clicking excitedly. 

** **

Upon being handed the cup, Gabriel began slurping up its contents through a bendy straw with a massive smile on his face. 

** **

For some reason, Gabriel seemed to be a lot less unpleasant when trying to drink a liquefied sandwich through a straw than he was any other time Nino had encountered him.

** **

Soon, Nino and Adrien left Gabriel to his meal while carrying their art supplies and respective sandwiches. They exchanged friendly waves, and Gabriel tried to relax while dislodging a large chunk of tomato from his straw. Mentally, he tried to repeat the conversations he’d just had so he could remember relevant words and information later. 

** **

Gabriel leaned backwards in his chair and then froze, narrowing his eyes as he stared into the distance, quietly muttering to himself.

** **

“What is…. dude?”

** **

————-______________————

** **

Gabriel didn’t know what day of the week or what month it was, but he was trying to keep better track of these things. At least he could enjoy the warmth that the current changing of seasons brought. Although he now had to resist a far stronger urge than before to roost in a tree or nice bush, he still could let himself soak in the summer sun and heat.

** **

With awkward, unsteady hands, Gabriel slid his glasses off, hoping to rid himself of his oncoming headache. The glasses made everything look so clear and sharp that he felt like they were shards of glass scraping against the back of his eyes. Everything around him still looked muted and colorless, but at least it was back to the comfortable haze he vaguely remembered from before he got unceremoniously shoved into this ungainly body. 

** **

He mentally tried to inventory all the words he had learned so far and what they represented. There were so many things that humans had names for that he’d previously perceived as nothing more than vague sensations that passed through his limited sphere of relevancy. As a butterfly he’d only had to worry about whether things were sources of food, predators, or other butterflies he could potentially socialize with. Now he had to look ahead into the future and form increasingly complex and abstract ideas. 

** **

_ House _

** **

_ Hand _

** **

_ Help _

** **

_ Hair _

** **

_ Hello _

** **

_ Hat _

** **

He was finding himself forming goals now that didn’t involved his next meal, impressing other butterflies, or roosting somewhere safe and away from predators and cold temperatures. The future now stretched far beyond the present moment. 

** **

He had been collecting as many new words as he could, consuming the new information they brought with gusto. With each word he was more able to articulate his thoughts and feelings. With each word he understood the world and the people around him a little more. If he concentrated enough he could carefully strung them together like beads on a necklace.

** **

_ Car _

** **

_ Cat _

** **

_ Clothes _

** **

_ Cold _

** **

_ Circle _

** **

He looked out the window and wondered when Adrien would be back from “school”, whatever that was. Gabriel would have to inquire about it the next time he met Doctor Ramier. Perhaps Gabriel had been to “school” once, even if he couldn’t remember doing so. It seemed to be rather important, since Adrien spent so much of his time there. Maybe he could ask Adrien about “school”, when he came back as a conversation starter. Conversations were difficult and confusing sometimes, but they were good practice for speaking and Adrien seemed to like having them. 

** **

Adrien often seemed a bit happier when Gabriel tried to talk to him. 

** **

Being a parent to Adrien seemed like a potentially monumental task to Gabriel. He couldn’t just leave Adrien in a safe location with plentiful food and other children of his own species like a typical egg or caterpillar. Human children, it seemed, were frighteningly complex in their needs in comparison to caterpillars which only cared for food and warmth. 

** **

_ Son _

** **

_ Spoon _

** **

_ Soup _

** **

_ Song _

** **

_ Smile _

** **

_ Sorry _

** **

The soft fabric of his sweater stuck to his sweat-dampened skin. He hated how his body produced sweat now whenever he got too hot or trembled uncontrollably when he got too cold. At least he could appreciate the texture of the fabric. Fabric was warm and clean and felt nice. If he wore long, loose fitting clothes, he could almost pretend he still felt the familiar weight and pull of wings on his back. 

** **

Sometimes he felt like he could try to tear himself free from his own body and mind, but deep down he knew it was impossible. 

** **

He couldn’t fly away from this life he’d been thrown into. This stranger’s life. This stranger’s body. 

** **

_ Promise _

** **

_ Please _

** **

_ Parent _

** **

_ Pants _

** **

_ Possible _

** **

Walking on all fours still came instinctively to him despite his body no longer being built to do so. His arms and legs still ached from time to time from old injuries that had healed improperly. Even though he wanted some way to ease the pain, he was ashamed of his inability to properly express his need for comfort. He also didn’t want to upset Adrien and Nathalie. Whenever they saw him cry, they always looked deeply distressed.

** **

He didn’t like his hands and feet and how large and flat they were. They weren’t very useful when it came to climbing up flat surfaces, and he couldn’t taste with them in the slightest. At least they were better than teeth. Even though he tried to show his teeth a little when he smiled like he’d seen others do, the bony mouth protrusions still occasionally sent shivers down his spine when he thought too much about them. 

** **

_ Drink _

** **

_ Do _

** **

_ Dance _

** **

_ Dark _

** **

_ Dream _

** **

Potted plants and plants that he sometimes saw when he looked outside through windows would brighten his days up, if only a little bit. They reminded some primal part of his brain of safety security. Large, colorful plants meant food and safe places to hide from predators.

** **

He ran his fingers through the leaves of one of the small potted plants Nathalie had given him to keep in his room. They brightened up the room’s decor a little and created an oddly soothing and safe environment for Gabriel. Sometimes, when their soul got dry, Gabriel would fill up a plastic cup in his bathroom sink and water them, like he’d occasionally seen Nathalie do. He wasn’t sure why water needs to be put into the plant pots, but it seemed somewhat important. The waxy, pliant texture of the potted plants’ leaves felt oddly comforting against his trembling fingers. 

** **

Hours passed and the sun sunk behind the horizon. Gabriel spent much of this time desperately trying to conjure up memories. It felt like the majority of his mind had been torn away and he was poking at the edges of the gaping wound left behind. He could neither remember being a caterpillar nor a human child. All that remained of his memories from before the night he snuck into that flower shop was about a year’s worth of muted, disjointed images and sensations filtered through the limited mind of a butterfly. 

** **

At some point Adrien had returned home and finished his homework. He ended up bringing Gabriel dinner and some more papers to draw on. In return, Gabriel gave Adrien a drawing of a cat that he’d made earlier. Adrien’s face took on an unreadable expression before he thanked Gabriel for the drawing and hastily made his way out of the room. Gabriel hoped Adrien liked the picture, but he wasn’t sure if he drew the cat quite right. All that he knew about the animal was from his memories of the flash card he’d been shown when his speech therapist had him say the word for it. The odd creature Gabriel has seen a few nights ago looked an awful lot like a cat.

** **

_ Mind _

** **

_ Might _

** **

_ Mellow _

** **

_ Mirror _

** **

_ Make _

** **

Changing into his pajamas was a laborious process, yet Gabriel enjoyed the autonomy and independence he felt when he did even such a seemingly simple task on his own. He still wasn’t sure what part of his pants and shirt went in the front, but at least he could put them on in the first place.

** **

Gabriel pulled himself into bed, struggling to twist his torso and limbs into a position with which he could most extricate himself from his wheelchair and comfortably lay down. He made sure to lay on his back rather than face-down. The last time he’d lain face down he hadn’t realized covering his mouth and nose with the pillows he was laying on would keep him from breathing properly. He didn’t want to see Adrien or Nathalie as upset as they had been over that debacle ever again. 

** **

_ Friend _

** **

_ Fashion _

** **

_ Fall _

** **

_ Fear _

** **

_ Found _

** **

In the distance he could hear the faint sound of Nathalie’s shoes clicking against the tile floor. Gabriel didn’t like how the tiles were so cold and hard, and he also deeply disliked how shoes pinched his toes and made his feet feel heavy. 

** **

Somehow Gabriel felt he could trust Nathalie. He wondered if that was because she had saved his life multiple times and generally treated him well. She had helped him practice using utensils like forks and brushes. Shortly after he’d first woken up in this body and didn’t know how to use such things, Nathalie held them for him, doing her best to make sure he was clean, well-fed, and comfortable. Those first few days, his mind had been a jumbled mess of poorly-processed thoughts and feelings he couldn’t fully comprehend. He’d spent most of that time trying and failing to make sense of his strange body and replicate the noises made by the people around him. 

** **

That first night back from the hospital, he’d lain in bed crying near-inconsolably, terrified and alone in the dark and unable to process what had been happening to him. It had only been (what he would later assume to be) Nathalie's voice speaking to him in soothing tones that calmed him down enough for him to drift off to sleep that night. Now, he couldn’t remember what had been said, but he did remember feeling comforted and having his tears gently wiped away.

** **

_ Listen _

** **

_ Like _

** **

_ Laugh _

** **

_ Letter _

** **

_ Laundry _

** **

On evenings when Nathalie wasn’t too tired or busy, she would read to him, which he appreciated even if he didn’t understand all the words. 

** **

A lot of the time, she seemed at least a little tired and stressed. Gabriel hoped he could figure out some way to comfort her and make her happy. Such a task would be tricky since Gabriel honestly couldn’t figure out the sources of the emotions she was expressing. His understanding of emotion was very simple and largely based around physical comfort. It was only recently that he’d begun to feel emotions built on more complex things like his relationships with others, the well-being of others, and his personal sense of self-worth.

** **

Lethargy covered him like a heavy blanket and sunk into his bones. The stars winked at him like many eyes from outside his window. Gabriel hugged his arms against his chest and tried to slide further under his blankets. Soon enough, sleep overcame him.

** **

————-______________————

** **

Gabriel woke up to the sight of lush foliage and a large gray room. A thin cushion pressed into his back and head. His lips felt dry and chapped as he lay there in muted silence. No matter how hard he tried to move, his actions were always sluggish and clumsy. He felt like his limbs were made of lead and his mouth was stuffed with cotton and sand. After an arduous struggle he’d managed to hold his arm out and was met with a nearly invisible glass barrier that he could not muster the strength to shatter. 

** **

His breath rattled harshly in his chest like a set of rusty, old metal keys. Gabriel weakly scraped and scratched at the class until his fingers began to bleed and his nails were worn down to nubs. A heavy cold seeped into his bones, leeching energy from him. Old blood pooled behind his eyes and under his tongue, hot and sticky and rancid.

** **

A humanoid figure walked into his field of vision. Despite his unfocused vision, Gabriel could still somewhat make out the features of the person standing before him. 

** **

It was The Man That Was Him But Not. 

** **

The presence of The Man sent shivers down Gabriel’s spine. Looking at The Man was like staring into a warped mirror, except Gabriel felt like he was the reflection that had somehow taken the original’s place. Eyes as flat and cold as a slab of ice stared back at Gabriel. Ever so slowly, The Man made his way over to Gabriel’s prison. The Man put his hand up against the glass separating them, his face expressionless. Words bubbled up, quiet and raspy from Gabriel’s aching throat.

** **

_ Who _

** **

_ Were _

** **

_ You? _

** **

————-______________————

** **

Gabriel stared blankly at the ceiling above him with eyes glazed over with tears and exhaustion. Sleep had been irregular, and after Gabriel woke up from his most recent nightmare at some odd hour of the night, eluded him. 

** **

The door creaked as Adrien walked in with a plate of fruit and bacon. Gabriel flopped over onto his side so he could face Adrien. While trying to disentangle himself from his rumpled blankets and sheets, Gabriel whined.

** **

“Sentience… was… a mistake

** **

Adrien frowned slightly, as he noticed the bags under Gabriel’s eyes and how red and puffy his face looked. It was a good thing Hawkmoth was no longer actively akumatizing people, Adrien thought to himself, since the thought of someone taking advantage of his father’s current emotional vulnerability was almost sickening. Adrien honestly wasn’t sure what kind of akuma would result from his father having a nightmare or breaking down crying in frustration and confusion, but it certainly wouldn’t have been vindictive and anger-fueled like the Collector.

** **

“You had a bad dream, huh?”

** **

Pulling himself free of his fabric captor, Gabriel took a sitting position. He let his legs hang over the side of the bed, not entirely sure what to do with them. 

** **

“Bad dream… really really bad dream…”

** **

“Ah, yeah, I’ve had some interesting dreams once…. like the one with Hatsune Miku as Hawkmoth trying to beat me to death with a leek… or the one with zombies dressed like VSCO girls whispering petty insults in my ears while stealing my mi-... homework…”

** **

“Wh-“

** **

Gabriel pushed some hair that had fallen into his eyes back, wrinkled his nose, and squinted as he tried to make sense of what Adrien had just said. He had no idea who or what a Hatsune Miku or a VSCO girl was, but they sounded pretty intimidating.

** **

“They were like ‘Sksksks your face looks like mashed potatoes and your parents don’t love you sksksksks’”

** **

Even though mashed potatoes were rather wonderful in Gabriel’s experience (mostly due to not necessitating much chewing), it was obvious being compared to such a delicacy distressed Adrien, along with the comments about his parents not loving him.

** **

“Oh… Kay… don’t worry… son… I love you… and your face… not potatoes...”

** **

Adrien’s eyes expression became a bit less troubled at Gabriel’s response. Satisfied with Adrien’s improved mood, Gabriel began methodically placing food into his mouth and chewing it. 

** **

Adrien’s eyes drifted over to the numerous papers scattered across the sturdy little end table near Gabriel’s bed. Various shaky drawings and jumbled half-formed letters were scrawled across them. Quite a few of the drawings featured butterflies, which peaked Adrien’s interest. While it could be just a coincidence, Adrien couldn’t help but wonder if his father’s excessive butterfly drawings were somehow connected to Hawkmoth. Drumming his fingers absentmindedly against the foot of Gabriel’s bad, Adrien turned towards the man, who was currently swallowing a strip of bacon whole like a skinny human-shaped whale shark.

** **

“By the way, where did you learn about a word like sentience?”

** **

“Ramier… ‘enlightening’ talk of pigeons…”

** **

Gabriel scowled at the thought of creatures as dangerous and ruthless as pigeons. At least in this form he could more easily fend off their attempts to eat his delicious flesh, even if he was less capable of hiding in plants or fleeing. He had no idea why his speech therapist seemed so fond of them. 

** **

Suddenly, Gabriel had an idea.

** **

“Anyways…. want... ‘hang out together’?”

** **

“Uh, sure… that sounds great! Actually, I can show you my film, anime, and manga collections!”

** **

Adrien quickly exited the room with Gabriel trailing behind him and entered his own bedroom. He started carefully pulling boxes filled with various books and DVD cases from under his bed. Based on the bright colors on many of the items, Gabriel assumed Adrien had good taste. 

** **

Gabriel listened to Adrien animatedly talk about his personal interests. Although Gabriel had no idea what a “manga” or “anime” was, Adrien seemed to know a lot about them, so Gabriel would take his word on what counted as “high quality animation”. His son seemed to have an extensive knowledge of animated things in general. Apparently Adrien had also recently obtained a copy of the film “Cats Don’t Dance”, which was, according to Adrien, (despite not being an anime) “a classic”. If Gabriel had been able to write full words on his own, he would have taken notes.

** **

“Anyways… the song ‘Tell me Lies’ from the movie gets me every time. Those poor cats had their dreams of going into show-business crushed, crushed, I tell you! Poor Danny was too naive to see through Darla’s ruse, and everything was ruined so soon after he got his friends’ hopes up! Sawyer had her cynical world-view confirmed and her heart broken.”

** **

Adrien gesticulated dramatically as he passionately explained the intricacies of the music and animation of the obscure animated cat movie. He then went on rants about various “anime” that he’d watched recently. Including one about a duck that turns into a magical ballerina and one about a ghost girl helping her living friends cope with her death. Gabriel made sure to nod and make sounds of acknowledgment at the appropriate times to show Adrien that he was paying attention to what the teen was saying. While he didn’t understand much of what Adrien was saying, the teen certainly sounded very excited.

** **

A large object sitting near the center of the room drew Gabriel’s attention and curiosity.

** **

“What… that?”

** **

Gabriel asked, pointing at the mysterious object. Adrien’s eyes quickly flicked between Gabriel and the object before he answered.

** **

“Oh, it’s my piano! I’ve been practicing, er… sometimes… I’m not exactly concert quality yet.”

** **

“What… piano do?”

** **

“Well, when I press the keys in certain ways it makes music!”

** **

“Music… magnificent… magnificent… good… right?”

** **

“Yeah, would you like to hear a demonstration?”

** **

Gabriel nodded enthusiastically, and Adrien went and sat down on the piano’s bench. He carefully lifted the key cover before beginning to play a song. The tune was simple, clear, and catchy. Even though Adrien hit a few sour notes, his performance was natural and smooth, like he’d played this particular song many times before.

** **

An awed grin spread across Gabriel’s face. He’d never seen someone make music with only their hands and some large contraption of wood and ivory before. Music, in general, was a wondrous new concept to him, and he was amazed at how his son took part in making something so beautiful. 

** **

“Good! Music… really… good! … What music?”

** **

“I was… actually playing the theme song to this one anime I like…”

** **

“What anime?”

** **

Adrien then proceeded to go into a lengthy explanation of the plot of another anime he was quite fond of. Soon enough, he went on a tangent about another anime, and another, and another.

** **

After a while, Gabriel’s eyelids began to feel heavy and droop. His hands and feet felt tingly and oddly light. To rest his aching back and neck, Gabriel moved onto the nearby couch and laid down. 

** **

Eventually he dozed off while Adrien was waxing poetic about some anime he had watched a lot as a small child. In his hazy half asleep mind Gabriel couldn’t help but wonder what naval practitioners had to do with celestial bodies. Perhaps they were pirate astronauts, he thought. Nathalie had read a book about space and astronauts to Gabriel not too long ago, he’d found the pictures very appealing with their strange and beautiful colors.

** **

The sound of quiet snoring alerted Adrien to the fact that Gabriel had shuffled off to dreamland. He looked oddly peaceful, snuggling a throw pillow in his sleep, drooling on the upholstery. A serene smile rested on his face.

** **

Not wanting to disturb Gabriel’s slumber, Adrien carefully placed a blanket over him before tip-toeing out with his backpack in tow. In his sleep, Gabriel chirped cheerfully and wriggled under the covers.

** **

The large package of toothpicks and sheets of papers quietly rattled and rustled in Adrien’s bag as he walked away.

** **

Adrien couldn’t help but feel a bit of mood whiplash over seeing his father express so many emotions, both negative and positive, so openly in a short span of time.

** **

A slight sensation of guilt gnawed away at the back of his mind for fleeting thoughts about preferring his father this way despite the man’s amnesia. How his father might be better off not remembering Emilie in the first place so he wouldn’t really notice the gaping hole her absence left. How Gabriel wasn’t bottling up his emotions until something disastrous happened like he used to. 

** **

Adrien wasn’t sure what the future held, and simply hoped things would get better as time went on. In the meantime, he had a group project to work on and his friends needed the toothpicks he’d managed to purchase in bulk.

** **

Meanwhile, Gabriel slept, unaware of his son’s departure. His dreams were filled with warmth, color, and soft, soothing voices. His mind and heart did not ache as much over lost memories as they usually did. The warm weight of the covers and softness of the pillow in Gabriel’s arms brought a feeling of security.

** **

For the first time in quite a while, Gabriel slept soundly.


	4. Gabriel Sees the Big Picture

Sunlight streamed through numerous windows, bathing the room in light. Outside, a gentle breeze shook the branches of the trees. A scant few wisps of clouds floated lazily by in the clear blue sky. 

** **

Despite the fairly balmy temperature, Gabriel was wearing a vibrantly patterned poncho. Ever since he discovered that some variants of shawls and ponchos could be draped over his arms and back and made to flutter dramatically when he moved a certain way, he’d been enamored with them. Recently, he’d taken up trying to relearn how to knit so he could make a nice, long poncho so he could jump up and down and feel it catch the air like his butterfly wings used to. He’d made sure not to use too much purple yarn. If he wore too much purple, he would catch Nathalie doing double takes and giving him odd looks that he couldn’t quite place. 

** **

From his perch on the back of a chair, he watched a nature documentary. The words spoken by the narrator held little meaning to him, but the images and ambient sounds did, as they added to his little daydream about being perched on a nice tree in a lush field of flowers. Being in this state of mind, warm and in his mental “happy place”, eases whatever anxieties he had about failing as a father and friend or failing to understand the nuances of and find his place in human life.

** **

A long, slender derby-headed cane rested against the arm-rest of the chair Gabriel was currently occupying. The fabric of the chair itself was rather coarse and it’s back was slender, which made his stance a bit uncomfortable. 

** **

A lock of hair fell in front of his eyes, and he tucked it behind his ear. Its texture and length still unnerved him a bit. He had gotten accustomed to having a short, soft layer of downy fuzz covering much of his upper body as a butterfly. Then, Gabriel leapt from his perch, landing on all fours. Jostled by the sudden movement, Gabriel’s glasses fell off and clattered onto the floor. Gabriel grabbed them and rather ineffectively tried to wipe off any smudges with the edge of his shirt. He shifted awkwardly back onto his hind legs and reached out to pick up his cane and lift himself into an upright standing position. When he pulled his arms backward to stretch and banish any stiffness in his back, his spine made slight cracking and popping noises.

** **

Leaning heavily on his cane, Gabriel hobbled down the stairs and out the door leading to a well-lit garden. Although his movement was slower than with his wheelchair, he could more easily navigate the stairs and terrain outside while walking with a cane.

** **

The heat of the pavement and the slight itchiness irritated his bare feet somewhat, as he hiked up his pants and plodded through the garden. As far as Gabriel was concerned, some mild discomfort on his exoskeleton-less feet was a sacrifice he was liking to make to avoid wearing shoes. At this point there was no real reason for him to object to shoes other than him being stubborn and feeling like he should simply object to them on principle. Some small part of Gabriel felt miffed at the thought of intentionally covering up a major sensory organ used for tasting food, even though this was no longer the case with his human body. He had long since learned that trying to shove his hands into food and concentrating really hard would not make his hands and feet any more capable of tasting things. He had also learned that it took a surprisingly long time to make his hands stop smelling like onion soup. Socks and slippers were somewhat tolerable to him, though, if they had nice colors and textures.

** **

A statue sat silently at the edge of Gabriel’s line of sight. Moss was beginning to creep up its lifeless monochrome legs. Something about the statue was vaguely familiar, but Gabriel couldn’t pinpoint how or why.

** **

Gabriel gingerly lowered himself onto the ground, banishing his mild irritation over the sound of one of his knee joints cracking. A quiet hoarse hum emanated from his throat, filling up the quiet around him. It was an awkward wordless sound with little defined tune or rhythm, haphazardly floating and fluttering through the air. It was the first time he’d tried to sing in a long, long time. 

** **

While he appreciated quiet most days, sometimes it lead to his head filling up with too many confusing thoughts.

** **

He appreciated brief moments like this, where his head was no longer filled with words or worries, only sensations and vaguely defined emotions floating in his hazy head. If only for a little while, he felt light as air. He threaded his fingers through the grass, tugging at it a little and grinning some odd sense of enjoyment from the feeling of its texture against his fingers. Gabriel resisted the urge to stick out his tongue. Despite it being useful for tasting things and being the closest action he had to unfurling his proboscis in this body, doing so resulted in him getting odd looks and his tongue getting rather dry and uncomfortable after a few minutes.

** **

Even if he could no longer safely consume the flowers, he could still enjoy their smell and texture. With unsteady hands, he’d gently pinch the petals between his fingers or rub his face against them, careful not to damage the delicate plants and potentially deprive other pollinators of a meal. Many of the petals felt so soft and smooth, while others rumpled slightly or had nearly unnoticeable fuzz decorating their surfaces. Gabriel could spend hours taking in the sights and smells and sounds. At this present moment, he was contemplating attempting to lick one of the sturdier looking flowers for old time’s sake. On one hand, he would be able to taste a flower again and briefly pretend that he was still a butterfly. On the other hand, he could make himself violently ill if the flower ended up not being safe for human consumption.

** **

A tiny butterfly landed on a flower a short distance away from him, fluttering her wings and chirping.

** **

_ Flowerfoodhungerthirstfeedcolorgood _

** **

The butterfly looked to be fairly young, as she seemed to be very energetic and her wings did not appear to have lost any significant amount of their vibrant scales. Her wings were light yellow with intricate black, blue, and red markings*. She wriggled her antennae happily as she extended her proboscis and began to drink from the flower. The flower bobbed slightly as the butterfly tried to position herself more comfortably on its petals. The sound of the butterfly’s chirping and it’s jostling of the flower that it had alighted upon drew Gabriel’s attention.

** **

Gabriel wasn’t feeling particularly territorial or antagonistic towards another butterfly despite it not being time for migration yet, likely due to him having plenty of space to safely roost and rest in and a secure source of food. That didn’t stop Gabriel from feeling oddly jealous of the little butterfly. Unlike Gabriel, the butterfly had a body and mind that were of matching species and didn’t have to worry about her life getting really complicated and confusing. This other butterfly wasn’t having to learn language almost from scratch or needing to figure out how to do things like chew or brush it’s horrible, horrible teeth. The mere thought of teeth, made Gabriel shudder. Teeth were a necessary evil for humans, he supposed.

** **

After a few moments of watching the butterfly, it dawned on Gabriel that he could understand it. Even though he could no longer detect the nuances brought on by pheromones or see wing markings that reflected colors he could no longer see, the tone of the clicks and chirps and the overall body language of the other butterfly still made sense to him on some level. What butterflies had was not a language, and more of a severely limited manner of communicating general what precious few simplistic feelings and ideas they could understand. So, he stood up to his full height, cleared his throat, and let out a loud series of chips.

** **

_ Friendsmallnewfriendplaceroostfeedgood _

** **

The little butterfly started and whipped around, searching for the other butterfly. It took a few moments, but soon enough the butterfly realized that there was no other butterflies in the garden, and, in fact, the source of the stilted attempt at communication seemed to be the weird gangly giant looming overhead. The butterfly cocked her tiny head to the side and let out a hesitant click and antennae twitch.

** **

_ Bignotbutterflysoundfamiliarbutterflysound _

** **

For a good few minutes, Gabriel and the butterfly chirped back and forth, occasionally exchanging flaps and flutters (although Gabriel’s mostly consisted of awkwardly flailing his arms while trying not to drop his cane). The butterfly was baffled yet intrigued by Gabriel. After all, he looked and smelled like a fairly normal large not-a-threat creature yet he made butterfly-like noises and had butterfly-like sensibilities and had draped things upon his weird fleshy body that had butterfly-like coloration. To the butterfly, it was an awful lot like a person suddenly hearing a tree or rock start shouting garbled phrases at them, minus the ability to find such a thing disturbing or perceive and uncanny valley. 

** **

Once Gabriel and the butterfly had “conversed” quite a bit, the butterfly noticed how tall he was and how great and safe a hiding place he would be, much like a squishy bespectacled tree. Thus, the butterfly leapt off the flower, and flew onto Gabriel’s slightly outstretched arm. Surprised by the sudden movement, Gabriel yelped and fell onto his backside. As the butterfly stubbornly made her way up his arm and onto his head, Gabriel had to suppress a chortle at the tickling sensation of tiny insect legs against his skin and the sheer ridiculousness of the sight of another butterfly stomping. He briefly wondered if he had ever looked this ridiculous whenever he’d stomped around in a huff back when he was still physically a butterfly. 

** **

Suddenly, a screeching mass of feathers dive bombed Gabriel, attempting to snatch the butterfly nestled in Gabriel’s hair with its talons.

** **

Gabriel chirped angrily at the fiendish bird and batted at it with his cane. The bird cawed and lunged at Gabriel and the butterfly sitting on his head. Upon realizing that it probably wasn’t a good idea to pick a fight with such an intimidating creature, Gabriel backed into the bushes, attempting to hide himself among the leaves. When the bird began to caw even louder, Gabriel quietly wept in fear. Although Gabriel’s legs were still quite visible and the bird was still rather miffed, it quickly lost interest and flew away.

** **

After a few moments, Gabriel realized the bird had left and crawled his way out of his hiding spot, wincing as branches brushed against his face. He coughed out a few leaves before flopping facedown onto the ground. The slightly shaken butterfly tapped his head with her leg, almost as if to wake him up or urge him on like a stubborn mule. Once Gabriel had gotten a couple irritated groans and sighs out of his system, he begrudgingly sat up. He blew a raspberry in the general direction of where he thought he’d heard the bird fly off.

** **

Meanwhile, Nathalie was organizing her Nicolas Cage movie collection. At some point she had decided to allocate some of her duplicate films to the Agreste mansion so she could still watch the films there without having to pay for a streaming service or pirate them. Not to mention she was also considering sharing the wonders of Nick Cage with Adrien and Gabriel. Perhaps they’d enjoy watching the _ Ghost Rider _duology together.

** **

Upon checking the time, Nathalie realized that it was nearly time for Adrien to get out of school. Before she could go pick him up, she’d need to make sure that Gabriel was in an area that he was familiar with. The last time she’d left the man alone in an area of the mansion he was unfamiliar with, he’d ended up getting lost. It has taken several hours to find him somehow perched on the roof, shaken but unharmed. 

** **

Upon making her way down to the garden after searching much of the areas Gabriel frequented often, Nathalie was met by the sight of Gabriel making chirping and clicking noises with a butterfly trotting around in his now slightly messy hair. It still felt unusual to see him smiling and laughing, expressing unbridled joy instead of the flat icy veneer that everyone around him had grown accustomed to. 

** **

“Oh, there’s a butterfly in your hair. Why might that be?”

** **

Gabriel grinned and made a vague motion with his hands towards his hair.

** **

“Hair… soft and warm… butterfly friend like”

** **

Nathalie nodded, dispelling the slight unease that had been building up in her gut. This was all probably nothing. Gabriel was going to be fine. There was nothing to dread for the time being.

** **

Later, Gabriel would ask Nathalie to teach him how to slice fruit and open bottles on his own, and she obliged. She’d made sure to teach him to be extra careful around the kitchen knives and other sharp objects, and after much practice Gabriel had been able to slice an orange and some strawberries.

** **

Gabriel then made sure to place the fruit slices and juice-dampened paper towels in areas of the garden that would be most heavily trafficked by butterflies and other bugs. The thought of making sure his new butterfly friend and other insects got some decent food made Gabriel feel oddly pleased. 

** **

Being nice to others, he’d found, made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

** **

————-______________————

** **

The next day, Nathalie had been expecting a nice, relaxing morning, but sadly some chucklefuck decided to drop some legal dispute onto her lap like the hot mess that it was. At least she could tie this up in bureaucratic red tape for now and not have to directly deal with it for a few months. Little blessings, and all that. On top of that mess, the Bourgeois family had managed to remember that Gabriel existed and was now no longer a bona fide missing person and had sent what appeared to be a “care package”. She honestly applauded them for being decent enough to not try to blatantly invade Gabriel’s privacy or take advantage of him so far ,based on her experience of the fashion industry and politics.

** **

When Nathalie opened the package, surveys burst out of it and fluttered onto Nathalie’s desk like politically inclined confetti. Nathalie snatched a survey just before it could drift down onto her head.

** **

“What is your opinion on the state of Paris’ infrastructure? What the fuck?”

** **

Nathalie scoffed and tossed the paper aside. It and it’s brethren would likely end up in the recycling bin by day’s end. After sifting through the surveys and several pounds of gourmet chocolates and fancy clothing items, Nathalie managed to extricate three letters written in three different handwriting.

** **

The first was in an elegant, but harsh script.

“Dear Gabriel Agreste,

** **

Congratulations on not dying.

** **

Sincerely,

Audrey Bourgeois”

** **

The second, was written in a blocky and slightly haphazard manner.

** **

“Dear Gabriel Agreste and associates,

** **

As a brief preface, I sincerely apologize for any offense my wife’s message may have caused. She’s rather blunt, as is normal in the fashion industry, I suppose. Hopefully she’ll be able to express her sympathy and relief over your disappearance and return more openly in an in-person meeting in the future. It is rather hard to put pen to paper in regards to such emotional and complicated matters.

** **

Regardless, my family and I send our best wishes and warm regards. While details on your condition are sparse, we hope you’re doing well. I can assure you that Paris’ highly competent and dedicated police force will bring whomever, presumably, kidnapped you to justice!

** **

Reports mentioned you had issues with memory loss, so if you don’t remember to respond or remember who we are, that’s ok. I’m sure someone will eventually be able to inform you. (If one of Mr. Agreste’s associates is the one reading this and he doesn’t know who we are, could you please inform Mr. Agreste of who we are and our shared history ?) 

** **

Sending warmest regards.

** **

Sincerely,

Mayor Andre Bourgeois “

** **

The third and final letter was written in a hasty looping script.

** **

“Dear Gabriel Agreste,

** **

It’s great that you’re back! I’ll have you know that Adrikins has been worried sick about you during the year that you were gone. Make sure to spend lots of time with him and tell him Chloe says hi! Daddy’s been worried too, and not just because you’re mom’s friend or you’re a potential monetary benefactor or whatever. He was super upset about you possibly dying in a ditch or getting kidnapped by some shady crime ring or something.

** **

Oh, right, and if you don’t remember who I am, I’m the fabulous Chloe Bourgeois, your magnificent son’s best friend since kindergarten and (hopefully) future member of parliament! Get better soon! Seriously, get better!

** **

Toodaloo! 

** **

~Chloe Bourgeois~”

** **

Nathalie sighed and set them aside. She’d have to handle them later when she was a bit less frazzled. In the meantime, she could make use of some of the gift items and give them to Gabriel to enjoy. He’d probably either try to wear all the clothes at once or make them into a pile and roll around in them for a while. Once Nathalie had nearly folded up and put all the clothes away and chocolates back in their containers, she heated up the package and made her way to Gabriel’s room.

** **

A completed puzzle was sitting in front of a beaming Gabriel. It was a simple jigsaw puzzle with large colorful pieces that created an image of a kitten laying in a hammock, surrounded by grapes. Why the kitten seemingly lounging in a vineyard was a complete mystery to Gabriel. All that mattered to him was the fact that he’s succeeded at something and that the puzzle was visually pleasing, even without his glasses on. 

** **

Recently, he’d been going through puzzles with ever increasing speed and enthusiasm. For him, it was a fun way to practice moving his hands more precisely while remembering and recognizing patterns. Puzzles also had the benefit of making him feel like he’d actually accomplished something. He enjoyed puzzles depicting things like flowers and trees the most. 

** **

Dr. Ramier had recently given him a stack of crossword puzzles to try out once his vocabulary, reading, and writing skills were up to snuff.

** **

He’d started making drawings of the things he’d seen in his dreams, and stuffed them under his mattress and in flower pots for safekeeping. Perhaps if he could fit the bits of his dreams together like puzzle pieces, a picture would begin to take form.

** **

“Good job on the puzzle… This was, what, your sixteenth one this week? You’re going through puzzles faster than you’re going through pairs of socks… Wait… did you do this with your glasses off?”

** **

“What… glasses….”

** **

“The ones you need to see properly!”

** **

“Ah, right, those…”

** **

Gabriel glared petulantly at his glasses for a moment before sliding them on. 

** **

“By the way, someone sent a gift for you.”

** **

Surprise and incredulous delight spread across Gabriel’s face. Things like gift giving were still quite novel to him, especially since he had no recollection of things like birthdays or holidays involving such an action. 

** **

“Oh? Who?”

** **

“The Bourgeois family, they were rather liberal with their use of paper.”

** **

Gabriel stiffly stood up, awkwardly trying to balance uncertainly while simultaneously dealing with the mildly uncomfortable tingling in his legs from sitting in a weird position for so long.

** **

“Did… know… before?”

** **

As she walked over and placed the package on Gabriel’s desk, Nathalie nodded.

** **

“Yes, Audrey Bourgois and you were colleagues and Chloe was Adrien’s childhood friend and playmate.”

** **

Gabriel’s posture hunched a little, and he looked almost crestfallen at the reminder that there were numerous people in his life that seemingly knew him despite him no longer knowing them. 

** **

“Ah… a-alright…”

** **

Nathalie sighed and awkwardly patted Gabriel’s arm. 

** **

“How about I teach you how to use a microwave?”

** **

The mention of learning how to use a microwave made Gabriel perk up a bit. He knew that microwaves could be used to heat up soup, which sounded fantastic. All he could think about was the potential for unlimited soup.

** **

On the way to the kitchen, a painting caught Gabriel’s eye. Although he’d passed it many times before, for some reason he felt like taking a closer look at it.

** **

The eyes of the woman in the painting seemed to follow him and Nathalie, which unnerved Gabriel slightly. Something about the woman painting made his beard hurt, like a part of his mind was grasping for a memory that was no longer there.Why was this woman in so many pictures in this house? Her face dangled aimlessly in his mind like a loose thread, anchored to a woven system of thoughts and memories that had long since been unspooled and burned beyond recognition. It was the same face and hair as the statue in the garden. This face, this woman was important somehow. He wondered why he hadn’t seen her in person, despite her seemingly being important enough in this house as to merit her image being scattered about. 

** **

Gabriel stopped short, staring into the endless eyes of that unfamiliar woman in the painting. Soon enough Nathalie noticed that Gabriel was no longer following her and doubled back to find Gabriel locking eyes with the painting. 

** **

“What is it?”

** **

Gabriel tore his gaze away from the painting and turned to Nathalie, pointing at the woman depicted within the decoration.

** **

“Who… is…?”

** **

If Gabriel hadn’t gone back to staring intently at the photo, he might have noticed the alarmed expression that briefly flashed across Nathalie’s face before settling into resignation.

** **

“That was Emilie, your wife, Adrien’s mother, a fantastic actress, and something of an old friend of mine, I suppose… from what I could tell you loved her very much before… well...”

** **

Nathalie’s words came out taught and trembling like overwound strings on a violin. Despite how quiet and thin those words sounded, they hit Gabriel like a sledgehammer. Gabriel didn’t know why, but something hollow deep in his chest ached, like a part of him had been violently scooped out, leaving a raw gaping cavity. This woman’s face had thrusted itself violently to the front of his mind. This stranger’s face hung lifelessly smiling in his head like a broken doll or a corpse. 

** **

Gabriel had also seen something of that woman’s face in the color of Adrien’s eyes, the arc of his jaw, and the turn of his nose. He should have known this woman, Emilie, an actress, the mother of his son, and yet any knowledge of her had been purged from his mind like just about everything else. 

** **

Such things hadn’t quite registered before, since Gabriel was still rather unfamiliar with recognizing human faces. Voices were usually an easier method of recognition for him, and, well, he had no memory of Emilie’s voice or knowledge of whether things like voices were heritable. 

** **

In hindsight, the resemblance between his son and Emilie was rather uncanny. 

** **

“Where… she?”

** **

Nathalie’s breath hitched, almost imperceptibly. She stood stiff and strained next to Gabriel.

** **

“She’s gone”

** **

While Gabriel felt sad that she was gone, it was more of the distant sadness one feels for the tragedy of a stranger or a missed opportunity. How could he truly mourn someone he supposedly loved yet didn’t remember in the slightest? Perhaps the man he had been really had loved her, and she really was a wonderful person. Gabriel didn’t know, and he felt almost jealous of his past self for remembering her presence and being able to truly understand her absence. All he could conjure up was a vague feeling of loss. He wouldn’t have the opportunity to rebuild his relationship with her and get to know her again like he could with Adrien or Nathalie. She would forever remain an almost stranger that he would only know through stories and old pictures and videos. The sound of her voice, her laughter, would forever elude him, perpetually filtered through videos spat out by lifeless machines and contexts he didn’t comprehend. Most of the pain he felt was guilt over not feeling enough for her and frustration over having forever lost the chance to have that opportunity to know her and properly grieve her loss.

** **

It didn’t help that he wasn’t even completely sure of how he would have felt for her back then or how he should feel about her now, since butterflies didn’t form lasting romantic relationships despite humans seemingly doing so. Butterflies didn’t get married or get to know their partners. Such unions were for the sole purpose of reproducing, a nearly loveless biological necessity. Human marriage and romance, though, from what Gabriel could glean from television he’d watched and his education in language, was much more complex and emotionally involved. 

** **

Gabriel slumped over, like a marionette whose strings had been cut. He felt lost, adrift in an ocean of confusion. Another detail of the life of whose name and face he wore had tossed him about and thrown him for a loop. How was he supposed to mourn the loss of a person he’d never known or a relationship he could not truly understand.

** **

Nathalie sighed and lightly placed a hand against Gabriel’s arm, as if to steady him. Something about her gaze seemed distant, almost as if she was looking at something or someone that wasn’t really there. Despite her calm expression, her hands were trembling. 

** **

A lump formed in Gabriel’s throat as he leaned against Nathalie. His words seeped out stilted and uneven.

** **

“I … I don’t know… her…now... were we happy… before?”

** **

“Do you want to learn more about her? I could tell you… I mean… I don’t know everything about her, but I still talked to her and all that… and… yes… from what I could see of you two… you were both very happy.”

** **

A feeble sob pulled itself free from Gabriel’s throat, as Nathalie gently led him away and sat him down on a nearby chair. Gabriel stared blankly down at his numb hands, lightheaded and unsteady. The sensation of a handkerchief being placed in his hands drew him from his stupor, and he became rather aware of the stray tears and snot that were now dirtying his face. Almost immediately, he wiped his face and blew his nose, still sobbing a little before turning his gaze to Nathalie.

** **

“I… thank… you…”

** **

“I could tell you more about her later...

** **

Nathalie gently squeezed his shoulder and gave a small brittle smile. 

** **

“... and… Adrien could also probably tell you more about her if you want to ask, since she was his mother and all…”

** **

A shaky smile spread across Gabriel’s face as he nodded before his gaze dropped back down to the now rather damp handkerchief.

** **

“Oh…. sorry… about the… uh… mess… on… the uh…. whatsitcalled?”

** **

“Handkerchief. Don’t worry too much about it. I can put it in the laundry or get another one.”

** **

Nathalie’s smile dropped ever so slightly.

** **

“I can get us something to drink. Dehydration isn’t fun and I recently bought a large pack of hot cocoa. I’ll also get the microwave set up...”

** **

Gabriel’s expression brightened a bit and Nathalie felt a twinge of guilt.

** **

What she would be able to tell him would have to be limited and carefully edited so he wouldn’t be able to put the pieces together and realize that there was a connection that him, Emilie, and Nathalie had to infamous supervillains. Even if Gabriel did have his “moments” pre-memory loss and strange bug-like behavior, Nathalie believed that he had never been and would never be so oblivious as to not notice the truth practically sitting right in front of his face. At the very least she’d need to cut out any mention of miraculous, some of his and Emilie’s more questionable “hobbies”, or Tibet just in case Gabriel ever tried to look into such things and learned how to use a computer’s search engine. Of course, there was always the possibility that he’d come to the same conclusion as some news outlets and cops regarding his connection to Hawkmoth, which was that Hawkmoth had extorted him for cash before kidnapping and torturing him when he’d threatened to go to the cops with what information he’d been able to glean from his interaction with the supervillain. Regardless, she couldn’t risk him even potentially finding out he horrible truth. 

** **

There was so many things that Nathalie wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t for fear of breaking his heart or him turning himself in to the police. 

** **

————-______________————

** **

A detective hunched over her desk, staring intently at the tiny purple gem sitting almost innocently in front of her. Of all the things found in what was, presumably, Hawkmoth’s lair, this particular object was somehow both remarkable and fascinating. At a first glance it wasn’t nearly as anomalous as the absurd amounts of live albino butterflies or as gruesome as the human blood (which luckily hadn’t been too contaminated by the butterfly meconium)*, but upon further investigation, there was something _ off _about the simple piece of jewelry. It’s labwork failed to identify it as any known type of gem or metal and it seemed to be impossibly durable. 

** **

Something about it drew Detective Kaur in like a siren’s song. A quiet little voice in the back of her head urged her to put it on, nothing else seemingly could be done about it, anyways, other than locking it away in a storage container with all other nonessential items found at the crime scene. After months of resisting the urge to try on the strange piece of jewelry, Detective Kaur relented, and slid the silver backing off before pinning it to the collar of her navy blue jacket. 

** **

Suddenly, a tiny purple-ish figure flung itself, seemingly from the gemstone. Alarmed by the sudden movement, Detective Kaur stiffened and instinctively grabbed the rather heavy paperweight she’d left sitting on her desk. It was surprisingly hefty for an antique that appeared to be made of colorful blown glass. She spat out clipped, hasty words. 

** **

“What the actual flying fuck are you?”

** **

The tiny creature floated a foot or so away from the detective’s face, winged and with distinctly non-human proportions and facial features. It looked like some sort of bizarre cross between an insect and a plush doll with its cartoonishly large head and gossamer-y wings. The creature awkwardly rubbed the of its thin neck with a handless arm and began to timidly speak.

** **

“Er… wow… this is incredibly awkward. My apologies ma’am, I’m a Kwami, and my name is Nooroo.”

** **

Kaur nodded hesitantly, her brow furrowing, and moved behind her desk, still clutching the paperweight. Even if the creature was seemingly hostile, she couldn’t give up her easiest means of defense until she knew it was completely safe. She honestly had no idea if a taser would work on the bizarre little being should it decide to eat her face, or something.

** **

“Alright, Nooroo, that clarifies nothing other than what I’m supposed to call you… if that even is you real name.”

** **

“Ah, I suppose Kwami aren’t common knowledge”

** **

Detective Kaur scoffed and eyed the levitating creature up and down. Even though it had wings, it was certainly not using them to fly. Perhaps the appendages were vestigial.

** **

“No… so… are you going to explain what a Kwami is? Because you’re breaking so many laws of nature right now and I’m really trying not to lose my professionalism.”

** **

The Kwami did a motion that might have resembled them twiddling their thumbs if they’d had fingers. Detective Kaur loosened her grip somewhat on the paper weight, letting it hang more loosely in her hand at her side. 

** **

“A kwami is a powerful magical being that inhabits a miraculous, which helps a mortal being channel our immense power through their feeble carbon-based body! The miraculous in your possession, which I inhabit, is the butterfly miraculous, belonging most recently to Hawkmoth.”

** **

A butter laugh erupted from Detective Kaur as she placed a hand against her forehead and plonked down into her desk chair.

** **

“Oh… shit… okay so I found the source of a supervillain’s Powers, and it’s a tiny talking magical creature… Wait… Hawkmoth wielded the butterfly miraculous and called himself Hawk_ moth _? I know they’re pretty similar, but there is a difference between moths and butterflies, right? Moths are more bulky and they have feathery antennae, among other things...”

** **

Detective Kaur trailed off and grimaced slightly at the memory of that weird entomology elective class she took back in college. She’d never forget the bee incident, it would forever haunt her dreams. Nooroo tutted and shrugged with his tiny little nub-arms.

** **

“I think he just thought it sounded more intimidating any butterfly-based supervillain names he could come up with. He actually had a list and planned his whole schtick for days. I had to listen to him ranting for hours!”

** **

Both Nooroo and Detective Kaur winced at the thought of having to listen to such a pretentious ass rant about his planned supervillain antics for hours on hand.

** **

“I’m so sorry you had to endure that. Wait… can you possibly tell me Hawkmoth’s secret identity and MO so I can possibly find and arrest him? Could you count as a witness in a trial? Would your word be enough to get a legal warrant?”

** **

Nooroo sadly shook his head and sat himself down on Detective Kaur’s stapler, crossing his little digitigrade legs. The little creature looked oddly charming, perched awkwardly on a typical office tool. Detective Kaur whipped out a rather sizeable notebook and pen from her desk drawers. 

** **

“Well, I physically can neither speak nor write my former master’s name or any directly identifying things like their home address while they still live… Believe me, ma’am I do genuinely want to help, but, rules are rules, especially when they’re magically enforced. In regards to the legality, I wouldn’t know. I’m not an expert in human legal systems, especially modern ones.”

** **

The pen clattered quietly against the surface of the desk when the detective put it down and solemnly scratched her head, humming in contemplation. She forced anything verging in panic or uncertainty down. The case was a greater priority than her personal concerns regarding the existence of Kwami. She could ask the less immediately relevant questions and freak out when she got home. 

** **

“Well, since I can’t exactly teach a handless creature sign language, I suppose we’ll have to find a loophole. How do you feel about charades, Pictionary, or 20 questions?”

** **

Nooroo stares blankly at her with eyes as wide and bright as fluorescent street lamps.

** **

“I have no idea what Pictionary is.”

** **

In response, the detective merely shrugged and started hitting things down in her notebook.

** **

“Well, I suppose you’ll have to learn… if you want to share any information you have on Hawkmoth’s plans, identity, and whereabouts… By the way, do Kwami need to eat?”

** **

She gestured vaguely in Nooroo’s direction with her pen.

** **

“Well we don’t need to eat to survive, but we are stronger and more energetic when we consume certain foods. I personally prefer chamomile tea with caramel or lemon juice.”

** **

Detective Kaur sighed and began writing things down more vigorously. Nooroo floated over and curiously peered at her ever-increasing list of notes. 

** **

“I think I might be able to pick some up from home if you ever get too parched. My name is Detective Bani Kaur, by the way, but you can call me Detective Kaur or just Detective, if you wish.”

** **

The purple Kwami hummed his assent in response, unsure of how to act as silence fell over the room. It was confusing, but oddly pleasant to be allowed to simply exist in peace for at least a little while without being ordered around. 

** **

He really hoped the tea this human claimed to have was good, he was rather fond of teas and sweet things, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *The butterfly was a southern festoon butterfly. They live for a few weeks during spring and early summer, have complex wing patterns, and lay fairly small clutches of eggs.
> 
> *The type of Meconium produced by butterflies is a reddish purple liquid consisting of excess bodily fluids and liquefied organs not used in the processes of their metamorphosis or inflating their wings. I have seen this stuff personally, and it is nasty and leaves pretty ugly stains. Don’t raise butterflies unless you want to contend with the potential wing-juice organ soup party.


	5. Gabriel has some pun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bunch of my writing notes and drafts got deleted, so writing has been hard recently. I'm getting back into it, though, and trying to salvage what I can.
> 
> Regardless, I hope that this chapter is enjoyable.

The shifting of leaf colors and dropping temperatures filled Gabriel with unease and slight dread. They made him restless and filled his mind with a deep seated instinctual need to either migrate to warmer climates or hunker down somewhere safe so he could overwinter when the time came. With the cold came stiff joints and aching scars. 

Butterflies were beginning to either migrate to warmer climates, find places to overwinter, or passing away due to old age. As a result, Gabriel had begun to occasionally bring the less territorial butterflies in from the chilly outdoors, letting them stay in his room where it was warm and where he could provide plentiful food. The little insects seemed rather fond of roosting in his hair or on the potted plants he had been accumulating over the months. Some deep instinctual part of Gabriel cried for him to flee south or find a nice hollow in a tree or rock to hibernate in, but Gabriel’s higher thinking shoved those ideas down. There was no way he’d be able to safely travel and his human body wouldn’t sleep for more than a dozen or so hours at ta time. Not to mention if he ended up doing these normal butterfly activities without managing to get Adrien and Nathalie to participate then they’d be quite distressed over the lack of his presence, evidenced by them, especially Adrien, getting distraught when mentioning Gabriel’s year-long disappearance.

Running his fingers through his hair, Gabriel glared down at the paper laid out on the bed in front of him. His hair was now long enough to curl around his ears and require more extensive brushing in the mornings, but it had luckily it’s length had been evened out after a couple deeply awkward salon visits (which were still significantly better than the optometrist and dentist visits in Gabriel’s “humble” opinion).

At some point that morning, Gabriel had pulled the paper out from under his mattress and had labored over it since. 

It had taken hours upon hours of practicing holding a pencil properly on top of even more time dedicated to learning what letters he needed to use to spell his name. Learning to write was hard, after all. At least he was only missing fingers on his non-dominant hand. Eventually, he’d managed to eke out the letters needed to form his name. Even though the word was shaky and barely legible, Gabriel was elated over being able to remember the letters and write them at all. 

Not long after Gabriel had finished writing his name, Adrien had arrived home and made his way to Gabriel’s room. Upon seeing Adrien, Gabriel began babbling and chirping excitedly to himself before scampering clumsily over to Adrien on all fours. Simply seeing Adrien made Gabriel’s world feel a little brighter and a little more hopeful.

Adrien leaned over to gently clasp Gabriel’s hands in his own and pulled him into a standing position. Although Adrien would likely never admit it, he occasionally felt the need to check that his father was still there, alive and tangible and warm and breathing. Even though his father had been back for months, some ghost of his illogical fear that his father’s return might be some sort of a dream or illusion lingered. Each time his hand failed to pass through Gabriel’s hand or arm, making contact with someone real and full of warmth and life, Adrien breathed a mental sigh of relief

“Hello son!”

“How was you day, father?”

“Good…. wrote… name… know so so many letters… now… numbers too…”

Adrien’s hands were cold, but his smile was warm while he listened to his father stumble over his words in his attempt to talk about all the letter and number he remembered learning about in therapy. 

“How… was school?”

“It was great! Marinette said she’d help teach me and some of our friends how to make raspberry scones together, and I also think I did really well on a quiz that I studied for with my friends. Alya’s really good with linguistics and helped us all practice writing answers to the possible essay questions.”

As far as Gabriel could tell, all of Adrien’s friends seemed to be smart good-natured people, and he was rather proud of his son for flocking with such upstanding individuals. Perhaps one day he’d get proper introductions to all of his son’s friends, or, rather, reintroductions, as he may have been acquainted with them before and forgot about them. 

Then Adrien noticed how stiff and unsteady his father’s legs seemed to be, and offered to sit down with him while continuing the conversation.

Gabriel bumped his forehead against Adrien’s while being lead back to his bed. Much of his weight was being supported by Adrien’s shoulder, which was now nearly level with his own. It was only through old photos and videos that Gabriel knew that Arien had been much shorter than him at some point. After Gabriel had sat down on his bed and moved his papers over to his nightstand, he turned to Adrien and spoke hesitantly.

“Adrien… I was wondering… if… I could… ask about… what your mother… was like..”

Beside him, Adrien stiffened and a pained look flashed across his face, making Gabriel falter. 

“Oh… oh… did… make you sad? Sorry… didn’t mean to… can st… stop”

Gabriel almost seemed to shrink and curl up into himself, ashamed and afraid of potentially hurting Adrien’s feelings. A hand gently placed on his shoulder pulled him out of his wallowing in embarrassment and regret.

“No, don’t worry, I’m actually glad you wanted to talk about… about mom again… I want to talk about her and remember her, even if it hurts a little bit because I know she’s gone.”

For a moment Adrien stared at his hands, trying to think of what to say before looking at Gabriel with a sad smile on his face.

“She was an actress, and an awesome one too! She loved her job and she loved us. Before she ended up in the movies she did a lot of musical theater. In fact, that was where she met you… you were a costume designer in one of the plays she was in.”

“Oh… did she sing… alot?”

“Of course! Pretty much every morning she’d sing at the top of her lungs to wake us up if the alarm clocks hadn’t managed to do so already.”

The sound that escaped Adrien’s throat was something between a chuckle and a sob.

“She was so funny and smart and… I wish I could see her and talk to her again. There were so many things I never got to say to her, and so many things she’ll miss out on… I miss her so much”

In an attempt to comfort the now slightly tearful Adrien, Gabriel patted the teen’s back and hummed sympathetically. He felt a strange tightness in his chest and a lump began to form in his throat. Desperately, he longed for the right words to say to comfort his son, and to express his own sorrow over no longer knowing Emilie. 

“Oh… oh… she… sounds nice… I wish… I could miss her too… s-Sorry… can’t remember… her… she’d probably… probably be… upset… didn’t even… know her name...”

For a brief moment, Gabriel looked like he was on the verge of tears as well until he was pulled into a tight hug by Adrien. The two of them found support in each other’s unabashed affection and concern for each other’s well-being. They felt safe and at home in each other’s arms despite their similar yet staggeringly difficult personal struggles. 

“It’s okay father, this isn’t your fault. I’m sure mom wouldn’t be too upset about you not remembering her, she might be a little sad, but she’d mostly be glad that you’re alive and safe... If you’d like, I can tell you more about her later, and get some old pictures… and videos, so you can learn what her voice sounded like...”

Gabriel nodded, a smile forming on his tear-stained face.

“Thank you… I know she… probably means alot to you… and I really want to know about her… and how she was part of your life… and my life before… I want to know… the kind of person she was…”

“Oh, maybe we could go on a nice walk together, or something…”

Nodding enthusiastically, Gabriel tried to stand, but even with the extra support of the cane he’d grabbed from its place beside his bed, Gabriel’s legs shook and ached, nearly buckling underneath him.

Gabriel whimpered and scowled down at his uncooperative legs from his half collapsed position on the floor. In all honesty, he wasn’t really a fan of how his skeletal structure was set up. Sets of nearly identical legs attached to his thorax with an abdomen and wings as a counterweight seemed preferable to the complex and inefficient spine, hips, and feet he was now saddled with. In his opinion, being bipedal was inefficient and a shitty balancing act, especially with how weird his proportions were. Humans, as far as he was concerned, were very poorly designed in comparison to insects. The cane helped, but on days like this where he was too tired and achy to bother attempting to maintain his balance and support his own weight, the wheelchair was a nice alternative.

“It’s ok if walking is too difficult, today. You’ve been making good progress and working very hard at learning to walk upright. A little break won’t hurt. Your comfort is important.. and there’s no shame in using the wheelchair if you’re too tired to walk safely.”

“Yeah… but stairs…”

“Oh, right, you can’t really go up stairs in your wheelchair…”

Mentally cursing whoever decided to put so many of those horrendously long and hard to navigate staircases in the house, Gabriel nodded and whined in confirmation of Adrien’s realization. Even with his frequent obliviousness, Gabriel was aware of the fact that him being physically carried or someone letting him lean on them so he wouldn’t collapse after climbing too many flights of stairs would be difficult and awkward. While the cane certainly helped in regards to scaling staircases sometimes it wasn’t enough and Gabriel tired out or lost his balance pretty quickly after more than three or four flights. Of course, the architectural nightmare that was the Agreste manor had dozens of flights of stairs. If there was a tenth circle of hell then it would be as filled with stairs as the Agreste manor so as to inflict an eternity of leg pain and shortness of breath on whatever poor sap ended up there. 

Over the past few months, Gabriel had come to hate stairs with a burning passion. He supposed they wouldn’t be as much of a challenge if he climbed up them on all fours, but he’d quickly learned that doing so was rather hard on his hips and led to frequent faceplants.

“How about we just spend time doing things on this floor?”

When Gabriel nodded in response, a butterfly that had been nestled in his hair began clicking and fluttering its colorful wings in irritation at the sudden movement. A confused gasp emanated from Adrien’s throat.

“Why is there a butterfly on your head?”

As he pulled himself into his wheelchair, careful not to jostle his passenger, he shrugged and gave a lopsided grin.

“He’s friend… likes warm hair… have… lots of… butterfly friends!”

With great gusto, Gabriel let out a high-pitched clicking noise which prompted the approach of numerous butterflies from his potted plants, closet, and curtains. They all landed on his head and outstretched arms, and Adrien couldn’t help but stare in mild disbelief at the sheer number of butterflies perched on his father. 

“That sure is a lot of butterflies!”

“Uh huh… named some of them… with human words… these are…. Beans, Quilt, Leaf, Stripe, Self-loathing, Tree-sap, Rose, Blood-drinker, Fish, and Slurp!”

Gabriel gestured at a literal handful of butterflies that were ambling about. He felt rather proud of himself for learning and remembering enough words to refer to the butterflies by names humans could understand. Adrien held out a hand and let one of the butterflies crawl onto it, curiously tapping him with its little legs and antennae. 

“How did you pick the names?”

“I… didn’t…. butterflies picked… I… uh… tr… trensle.. translll…”

“Translated?”

How exactly Gabriel was supposed to translate butterfly sounds into passable French was beyond Adrien. Perhaps, Adrien wondered, this part of what appeared to be some sort of worrying delusions of actually being a butterfly that his father had. 

“Yes!”

“So, why Blood-drinker?”

Said butterfly began fluttering her wings ominously and making rather insistent clicking noises at Gabriel.

“She likes... drinking blood... from dead things.”

Butterflies were practical scavengers deep beneath the flamboyant colors and limited intellect, which led to the consumption of mud or other animals’ bodily fluids being a rather common behavior when more favorable food sources were scarce. Most butterflies typically preferred plant-based juices, some species favoring the flavors and nutrients of certain types of fruit or flowers over others. Blood-drinker was a bit of an outlier in her gaining a taste for blood over flowers and mushy (slightly rotten) fruit. Luckily her thirst could be sated by the meager drippings of rare steaks. Even if she were to seek out more living sources of food, all she could really do was lightly bat at things with her little legs and wings. 

Adrien found himself feeling both intimidated and amused by Blood-drinker, despite her technically being harmless. The rest of the ensemble of butterflies varied in size and color, but they were all generally adorable. Honestly, Adrien was just happy his father had hobbies and some form of companionship to occupy his time when Adrien was at school and Nathalie was working. More and more nights he would find his father asleep on a couch, nature documentary still droning on in the background and a knitting kit resting on his gently rising and falling chest. 

Soon, Adrien found himself getting roped into helping feed the butterflies by soaking paper in sugar-water and placing out mushy overripe fruit slices amongst the now flourishing houseplants. After dislodging a particularly clumsy butterfly from an oddly shaped flower that it had gotten its little face stuck inside, Gabriel froze before doubling over slightly in his wheelchair.

Some heinous combination of an itch and an ache in his scars made Gabriel jolt and let out a quiet warbling cry. He began frantically rubbing at his face (primarily because the scars there were easier to reach than those on his back or sides) in some vain attempt to stop the pain. Newly formed nerves and scar tissue pulling the skin around itself too tight were becoming an incredibly distracting source of discomfort for Gabriel. Adrien dropped what he was doing and tried to comfort his father until he’d regained some of his composure.

“Do they hurt often? If you don’t mind me asking”

“Most days… not much… but… sometimes… when cold and dry… does…” 

Even though the scars would never truly go away, they would become less prominent and painful with time and treatment. Sometimes it almost felt like the scars, their pain, went somewhere far deeper than just his skin.

“Where does it hurt the most?”

“Face… head… itches so bad...”

“Do you want help applying your scar cream?”

Gabriel nodded, his eyes shining with unshed tears, and Adrien gently helped Gabriel wheel back to his bed and climb into bed, wrapping a large blanket around him to keep him warm before leaving the room. When Adrien returned, he was carrying a small tin of ointment that smelled slightly of vinegar, which made Gabriel wrinkle his nose in mild distaste. He clenched the edges of the blanket in hopes of stifling the tremors in his hands brought on by pain and the chill.

Once, Adrien had scooped some of the ointment out of its container his fingers lightly traced the shape of the scar above Gabriel’s eye. Wheezing and trying to hold back tears, Gabriel leaned into Adrien’s touch, letting Adrien gently apply the ointment to the rest of his face. 

Once a good amount of cream had been applied, the pain subsided and Gabriel let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank… you… hurts less now…”

Adrien nodded and wiped any remaining ointment from his hand off onto a tissue from a small packet he kept in his pocket.

“How about I go get us some lunch. Could you watch my backpack for me? It does tricks! Heh, that’s a joke, it doesn’t… actually do tricks… Uh… I’ll go and get the food now…”

Gabriel nodded solemnly and made sure to watch Adrien’s backpack very intently, almost as if it was his sworn duty to protect the bag and the schoolwork within. Schoolwork was very important, Gabriel deduced, since Adrien and his friends spent so much time on it and Gabriel not remembering his schoolwork was part of the reason why he was now struggling to do things like read and write. Eventually, Adrien returned with two plates of chicken and fries.

Sadly, Adrien tripped, getting a faceful of fries, condiments, and grilled chicken and scattering food about the room.

“Oh no, fry does this keep happening to me!”

Gabriel rushed over to help before freezing midway through picking up a stray fry and furrowed his brow in mild contemplation and confusion.

“What… was that… you said… fry instead of why…”

“Oh, that was a pun, I think! It’s a form of humorous wordplay.”

Laughter bubbled up from Gabriel’s chest, raspy and wheezing. It wasn’t until later that Adrien would realize that this was one of the first times he’d heard his father genuinely laugh in years. The sound, despite how feebly is floated through the air was oddly melodic. Adrien cocked his head to the side and a mirthful grin spread across his face.

“Oh, you like puns?

“Yes… I do believe.. They’re pretty… funny… or should I say… they sound like… loads of… pun!”

“Do you think you’re up to the challenge of being a pun-master?”

“Fool! My puns… will be … leg-endary!”

Gabriel enthusiastically stuck his leg in the air, grinning and cackling maniacally. Next to him Adrien was nearly doubling over, trying to suppress his laughter. Adrien picked up a stray packet of mustard from the floor

“Y-you really mustard a good pun there!”

Wiping away tears of laughter, Gabriel pulled a strawberry out of his sleeve, a massive grin on his face.

“Oh yes… I hope… my sense of humor… is …. berry good!!”

“You really caught me off guard with that, I wasn’t red-y for that one!”

“It’s… all according… to plant… Adrien…”

At the sound of raucous laughter, Nathalie poked her head into the room with a deeply unamused look on her face. 

“Could the two of you keep it down, please. I’m trying to get some work done and noise reverberates through almost any room that isn’t soundproof. I swear, it’s like the acoustics of this place are closer to those of a theater than a house.”

In an act of mild rebellion, Gabriel let out a petulant whine, but put up no actual resistance. He knew Nathalie had to do alot of work, and he didn’t want to make things too hard on her. One of his greatest fears was doing genuine harm to her or Adrien, or anyone really.

“Awww…We’re… just… having a good… lime!”

From seemingly nowhere, Gabriel had managed to produce a rather high quality lime from the folds of his jacket.

“You can keep having fun just quie- Where did you get that lime?”

“It’s… a… trade secret…”

“For what trade?!”

“Shhhh…. That is… a… secret… too”

The secret was actually pockets hidden discreetly in the folds of one’s clothing, which Gabriel had discovered in some of his more loose fitting old outfit. He silently thanked his past self for the valuable fruit-pockets, even if they weren’t past-Gabriel’s intended purpose for the hidden pockets. 

Nathalie chuckled and shook her head, before cringing at the sound of Gabriel biting into the lime, skin and all. Without turning around, she knew that he was feeding the rest of the lime to a couple of butterflies that had still been lounging in his hair and scarf. Somehow the man had managed to be careful enough to keep butterflies throughout his hair and outer layers of clothing without harming their delicate little wings.

“This is far too reminiscent of that time you ate toothpaste…”

Making a broad gesture with one of his hands, Gabriel leaned against the footboard of his bed with one arm hanging over it.

“In my… defense… it tasted… minty fresh…”

“You do realize that you can’t just eat anything that tastes moderately good, right? That’s how toddlers back in the day ended up with lead poisoning from paint.”

This lesson had been especially well instilled after the incident where Gabriel tried to drink dish-soap because it was a pretty color and had a fruity scent. As it turns out, dish soap was not palatable and the only cleaning it did that day was for Gabriel’s insides when he had to drink ridiculous amounts of water to dilute it on top of the deeply embarrassing and frightening doctor’s visit.

“Well… now I know…”

“I suppose, as long as we don’t have another incident where we have to call poison control again.”

Such incidents had been often enough during the first week that Nathalie had got poison control on speed dial and had to “Gabriel-proof” the manor by locking up any potentially dangerous and drinkable liquids or pastes. They’d subsided after Gabriel had realized that it wasn’t actually a good idea to try to put things he didn’t know were food or dental hygiene products in his mouth.

“I promise… I’ll be more careful with what I eat… if that will… a-peas you…”

Nathalie nodded and then, with a deadpan tone of voice and a face straighter than a vector began dropping puns like there was no tomorrow.

“Yes, it peas-es me that you are being cooperative. Now, I should go and try to ketchup on my work in a moment.”

Off to the side, Adrien smothered his snickering with a hand as Nathalie and Gabriel continued a conversation that was gradually becoming more and more incomprehensible due to the absurd amount of puns being used in it.

For many years after, Gabriel would recall this memory fondly and smile, holding it close to his heart. The new, happy memories he was making were some of his most cherished “possessions” now.

————-______________————

A quiet beeping echoed through the cozy, but practical kitchen from its microwave. It was a rather clean kitchen, all green tiles and granite, aside from a few unwashed plates “soaking” in the sink. All of the house’s messiness in the house had been allocated to the closet and desk, which were filled with files and cork boards of images and maps.

It’s, formerly sole, occupant groggily pulled open the microwave door and extricated a steaming cup of plain water and a steaming cup of tea. She slid the ceramic cup of tea across her kitchen table to her new, magical roomate. Said Kwami sent her an appreciative nod, before adding several packets of artificial and natural sweeteners to the mug and slurping its contents through a bendy straw.

“Is there truly no way to break your restrictions?”

Momentarily, Nooroo ceased his ravenous slurping to sadly shake his tiny head, wiping a droplet of tea away from his mouth. 

“Any default magical failsafes or extra commands will stay active until my previous holder dies or removes them himself.”

Both parties sipped or slurped their respective drinks, and Detective Kaur left the room, returning with a set of colored pencils and some printer paper.

“Try drawing me a hint, please, keep it vague enough to bypass the restrictions…”

Presented to her was a somewhat crude drawing of a stern looking pale-haired man in a suit and glasses that Nooroo managed to draw despite his limitations and how nubby his forelimbs were. Of course, it was simply an “innocent drawing” of a man who “just so happened” to resemble someone very relevant to their situation, and if a particularly detective made some sort of connection, then the magical restrictions couldn’t register it as Nooroo having told her directly or indirectly. 

“That’s Mr. Agreste isn’t it?”

Nooroo nodded his head so quickly, he almost resembled a bobble head doll, and detective Kaur stumbled out of the kitchen and into her office before returning with a thick manila folder.

With some hasty digging around in her desk, she managed to produce a condensed file for the dual Agreste cases. She flipped open the front of the manila folder, revealing files and multiple pictures of the clearly disoriented looking case-subject from when he was first recovered, along with images of X-rays and brain scans the police had been permitted to use. Ms. Sancour had been rather tight-lipped about the specifics of Mr. Agreste’s condition (for privacy reasons), but she had vetted the use of some more general information. Detective Kaur hummed as she added an annotation to her personal notes included in the file.

“Hm, well, I already did suspect that Mr. Agreste was involved in this somehow… It’s good to receive some confirmation from a direct witness rather than just circumstantial evidence. Could you confirm the nature of this connection?”

Nooroo sighed in frustration, his pupils sliding over to look hesitantly at the file before wincing and averting his gaze. 

“I… I don’t think so, miss. Further elaboration of Mr. Agreste’s connections to Hawkmoth could potentially reveal his identity… pardon my language, but damn these magical fail-safes… I’m glad they saved numerous holders from being found out and burned at the stake back in the day, but they don’t take into account holders using our powers for evil!”

The little Kwami getting a bit uncharacteristically huffy was both sad and amusing. While he may have looked adorable in his mildly expressed irritation, but it was evident that these restrictions were deeply frustrating him. Detective Kaur handed him a thimble, with its holes sealed up, that was full of double shot espresso and honey mixed with tea. Upon chugging the concoction, the bright purple blush and irritation somewhat bled out of him. How a bloodless creature could get flushed and how a beverage loaded with stimulants calmed him down was a question for another day.

While Nooroo caught his metaphorical breath, Kaur was pacing back and forth, stroking her chin as the hems of her mint-colored pajama pants brushed the floor.

“Ah, so either Mr. Agreste knew Hawkmoth’s identity, knew his civilian identity personally, or was him…”

Nooroo floated over and alighted upon her shoulder, half-expecting to be admonished for doing something he hadn’t been directly asked or prompted to do. Instead she turned her head towards him and blinked slowly before continuing her pacing. Any act of kindness or even tolerance seemed like a ruse or a farce to trick him, even though he was in the presence of what was clearly an at least somewhat honest woman.

“You’re getting warmer… like boiling hot… oh! Wait! I think there is something I could tell you since it’s not directly tied to Hawkmoth’s secret identity!”

“Well, spit it out…”

“Mr. Agreste was turned into a butterfly… due to his involvement in relevant illicit affairs.”

The detective stopped in her tracks and shot the Kwami a slightly incredulous look.

“Excuse me… what? Do you mean he literally became a butterfly? Did Hawkmoth turn him into a butterfly?”

A strange unreadable expression passed across Nooroo’s face as he nodded, staring into the distance. His words fell out drawn and strained, barely audible over the sound of the detective’s breathing and the ambient creaking of the building’s floors and walls.

“I suppose you could say that…”

“That’s both amusing and kind of horrifying… Does Hawkmoth normally turn people into butterflies?”

Nooroo shook his head, shuddering in dismay at the unpleasant memory before speaking.

“No… what happened was a fluke… a tragic accident… he dabbled in terrible Magic that should not be used by inexperienced mortals!”

Hastily writing down further notes and flipping through the file on the counter for information and phone numbers, the detective began muttering to herself.

“Shit… I’m really going to need to see if I can get information on Mr. Agreste, possibly an interview to see if he remembers anything at all despite his… unfortunate amnesia… Even if he isn’t Hawkmoth, he was at the very least involved in whatever shady things the villain was doing.”

“Yes… I certainly suggest you investigate him if you want to learn more about Hawkmoth.”

“Believe me, I do want to learn more about Hawkmoth, so that he can be brought to justice. So many people suffered because of that heartless monster. 

A solemn look passed across Nooroo’s inhuman face. His heart bore little room for hate and vengeance, but he knew that egregious wrongdoings such as those of his former holder would warrant swift and sometimes severe punishment. While he had no love for Gabriel, he did not want to see the man put drawn and quartered. Humans did seem to have moved past such crude and horrific ways of punishing criminals, but Nooroo would have to inquire on the matter later.

While Nooroo contemplated whether modern humans would find hard labor or time in the stocks as sufficient punishment for magical crimes, Detective Kaur dialing a now somewhat familiar number on her phone. After a few rings, a woman’s voice emanated from the receiver.

“Hello Detective, I’d imagine this isn’t a social call…”

“No, Ms. Sancour, I was calling to ask about Mr. Agreste’s condition and if he was willing and able to answer a few questions.”

“Well, he’s made a significant recovery in the past few months, but his condition is still… fragile… I’ll ask him if he’s willing to do an interview, but please tread lightly. He’s very… sensitive… and I don’t want to risk him breaking down or regressing due to excessive stress.”

“I understand. If the questioning puts too much mental and emotional strain on him and you or he requested it, questioning will cease. All details will continue to be kept confidential until we can find the culprit behind his disappearance… and any possible criminal associates they might have…”

“That seems reasonable. Tuesday at noon?”

“Yes, that will do just fine. Thank you for your time and cooperation, Ms. Sancour.”

The little purple stone thrummed warm and alive against Detective Kaur’s chest as she hung up and took a deep breath. She turned to Nooroo, who was making himself at home under a fuzzy washcloth.

“I’ve set up an appointment to interview Mr. Agreste, but I’m not sure how much he’ll be able to tell me.”

Nooroo timidly poked his head out from under the washcloth, dwarfed by the fabric surrounding his tiny fram.

“What do you mean?”

“When he came back he… wasn’t in good condition, mentally that is. He had the remnants of some physical injuries, but the mental ones obviously went much deeper. He didn’t even know his own name, so it's doubtful he’d remember much at all about his past, much less the details of his disappearance and his connection to Hawkmoth and goodness knows what other shady dealings.”

The little Kwami hummed and nodded his head, a look verging on pity crossing his features.

“It makes sense that he’d be worse for wear, considering how rough such a transformation is on the body and mind. I would know, I-I heard him screaming when he was transformed… The agony of it must have been unbearable. It was probably especially bad because of how different humans and butterflies are. The transformation might not have been so bad if he’d been turned into a mid-sized mammal with a fairly complex nervous system, like, say, a dolphin or a large breed of dog. An insect, though… “

The Kwami tutted and shook his little head. Despite his personal distaste towards Hawkmoth for imprisoning and demeaning him on a regular basis, he still wouldn’t have wished something so painful and traumatic on the cold bastard. Although, based on the meager information Nooroo saw in the case file, the man was too mentally decimated in the wake of his transformation to be a cold bastard anymore. Apparently, the loud noise from the MRI-scanner was enough to make the former supervillain break down crying in terror. Mostly, the thought of the man just made him sad, now. The man had squandered what creativity and potential he had on his selfish impossible quest, hurting strangers and anyone who had cared for him.

Mild horror crawled up the detective's spine, as she tried to fathom how such a transformation would alter a person's body. The detective knew that she’d need to keep her metaphorical cards close to her chest and be subtle about her suspicion of Mr. Agreste until she could collect evidence that was permissible in court. Vigilante justice was off the table for her, so she’d need to use Nooroo’s knowledge through legal and hopefully ethically sound channels.

That wasn’t even going into the quandary of whether Mr. Agreste could truly answer for his crimes if he didn’t remember committing them. Even if he was merely a minor accomplice to Hawkmoth’s schemes he would have still been assisting a dangerous criminal. Her heart felt heavy at the thought of possibly bringing up charges against a man who genuinely believed he was innocent, regardless of the crimes he had committed before his mind and memory were decimated.

She made her way to a closet in her bedroom with Nooroo now hovering inches above her shoulder. It’s door was slightly ajar, and she pulled it open to step inside. The space was modest, but clean. All of the shelves were stuffed with books and baubles but one, which held an oddly decorated, yet largely inconspicuous tissue box.

“Would you like to stay home tomorrow?”

Nooroo floated ahead of her into the closet before turning back to face her.

“That would be rather nice, ma’am…”

“Make sure to take care of yourself while I’m gone, Nooroo….”

The detective padded out of the room, scarcely making a sound. The little Kwami nodded at her, exhaustion bleeding a bit into his smile, into his voice.

“Goodnight, Nooroo”

“Goodnight, Detective”

Before the lights flickered off for the night, Nooroo drifted down onto a makeshift bed made from a shoe-box, cotton balls, and fabric scraps. Newspaper and magazine clippings that he had picked out had been pasted to its sides to make it feel a little more homey. It was nice for Nooroo to have a space for himself where he could rest and decompress. For the first time since the fiasco in Tibet, Nooroo had a holder (though some might not consider her one due to her scarcely ever using his powers) that let him set boundaries and took his mental and emotional well-being into account.

Deep in his metaphorical heart, Nooroo just wished for everything to be over and settled. He’d help humans find closure after all the conflict and strife, but once he was no longer needed he would rest, and enjoy a little bit of his eternity.

The Crab Nebula seemed like a really nice vacation spot, after all.

————-______________————

  
  


As he slept, Gabriel stumbled aimlessly in his dreams, grass brushing against his legs. 

Decrepit crumbling buildings dotted the landscape around him like tombstones. Footsteps echoed behind him and he could feel harsh cold breaths puffing against the back of his neck, rustling his hair. Gaping holes in the ground and sky around him yawned ominously, looking almost as if they would swallow him into their musty maws should he make a misstep.

He dropped down onto all fours and began to sprint. Icy wind tore at him the faster and further he ran. Something burned under his skin. Old unused limbs tore their way free from his flesh and out into the cold air. His body felt like some bizarre combination of human and insect, an uneven thing that wasn’t sure of what it really was. Once again, he could see every color that he used to.

The grass gave way to metal, cool and unyielding under Gabriel’s bare hands and feet. Little droplets and splashes of blood speckled the floor around him. Now it was dusky and dark and the sky had been overtaken by a roof. Light seeped in through a large window with a butterfly-like design built into its distant glass face. Gabriel recognized this room, but he couldn’t pinpoint when or how he’d come to be in this place. The footsteps now thumped rhythmically against the floor, in time with the frantic pounding of Gabriel’s heart. He skidded to a stop, hands and feet splayed and shaking against the cold, damp floor. Fluff that had somewhat re-formed on his limbs and around his neck and shoulders rubbed awkwardly against the fabric of his shirt.

Gabriel steeled himself and whipped around to confront whoever had been following him.

There, uncomfortably close and seemingly unfazed was the man whose past and actions had loomed over Gabriel ever since he’d been shoved into this wretched human existence. This was the man who shared his face and name. The Man tilted his head to the side ever so slightly, his hair and clothes impeccable and oddly severe looking in the filtered half-light from the window. 

“Why do you… follow… in dreams”

The Man merely shrugged, his brow furrowing ever so slightly in irritation.

“It’s not like I can’t leave your head. I’m part of you, you imbecile…. Whether I’m actually a construct of your ideas of what your past self was like or your actual past self, I’m still part of you! We’re stuck with each other until we’re put in the ground despite how much I loathe the thought of being part of such a foolish, pathetic creature such as ourself! Honestly, I have no idea what to do with you, you cry at the drop of a hat, you always put your shirts on backwards, and you’re nearly illiterate. How can someone as elegant and wonderful as me be the same person as such a bumbling buffoon. I swear you can’t pick out a decent outfit to save our lives-”

When the Man was starting a tirade about button-down shirts and thread count, Gabriel sat down cross-legged and began fiddling with his hair. He hoped to possibly grow it out long enough to braid or put in buns or ponytails like he’d seen Nathalie do with her hair. Long hair just seemed nice in general, since it could keep the back of his neck warm without the use of a scarf. Deep down he was a bit troubled by the Man insulting him, and wondered if this was tied to some suppressed feelings of self-loathing in himself, or perhaps some weird inferiority-superiority complex. What did he know, though, he was a butterfly, not a psychologist.

“Ugh, are you even listening to me? You have questions don’t you? What do you want to ask me about… you embarrassing whinier version of me.” 

“The truth… the past”

The Man huffed and shook his head, smoothly stepping around the blood and crumpled fabric, seeming almost weightless and intangible like a phantom.

“Oh, really…”

“I… yes”

“You do realize you could be happier without it… perhaps it was the past that got us into this mess in the first place, don’t you think?” 

A puff of icy breath whispered against Gabriel’s ear as the Man leaned over to whisper to him, perfect hands folded behind a slightly bent back. Something in Gabriel’s chest tightened and he began to tremble, as he turned to look at the man.

“You’re… hurting…”

Swiveling away, faltering like a broken record, the Man stalked away with his face a hard, lifeless mask of frosted glass. His hand absentmindedly skimmed against the top of Gabriel’s hair, lighter than air as he passed by.

“Despite what some might think, ghosts can hurt you…”

A trembling hand lightly grabbed the man’s sleeve, and stumbled into a standing position with his ungainly limbs splayed and scrabbling. Upon steadying himself, he looked into the Man’s eyes with a frown of tentative concern lying on his face.

“Why… do you seem so alone… you don’t need to be… please…just let me… let us..”

“I suppose we’re getting soft… and old… Our hair has been looking almost more grey than blonde as of late… ugh we’re practically geriatric already. I don’t know why I responded to you in the first place. You care too much, so tied up in other people’s problems.”

Gabriel did not know why the Man spat the word soft out like it was some sort of insult. Soft things felt comforting like soft fabric against his skin. There was nothing wrong with being soft and malleable. It made one less liable to crack, and this Man was cracked to his core. Gabriel looked into eyes that mirrored his own and saw something hollow and broken inside, and he wanted to know why. He desperately wanted to know the man who he once was.

“What… do you… mean?”

Just as Gabriel timidly reached out to the Man in some vague gesture of comfort, the man slapped his hand away and backed off into a shadowed corner of the room. The two Gabriels scoffed at each other in unison, sneers marring their nearly identical faces as they turned their noses up at each other.

“If you really want to know more about your past, it’s all up here, in this thick skull of yours, you just need to figure it out. Unlock it and put all those broken pieces together, if you so wish. Much of what we once were seems to be gone forever, but I do believe there’s something salvageable left behind.”

Gabriel’s eyes looked up at the stained glass window above and stepped out into the light a bit, his breath catching in his throat. A vaguely familiar weight of something small and smooth and strangely alive sat in his hand, but when he opened it, his palm sat empty. Flashes of dreams and disjointed half-memories from his time as a butterfly swirled around in his head. Hawkmoth seemed to be at least tangentially related to Gabriel’s past, but he wasn’t sure how or why. The supervillain’s visage and the feelings of dread and almost-guilt when it occasionally appeared in his dreams seemed too visceral and tangible to be based solely on news reports he’d seen. Perhaps it was a coincidence and he only felt oddly invested in a supervillain he couldn’t remember meeting because of the villain’s lepidopteran theme matching Gabriel’s former lepidopteran form.

“I… there’s something to do with… Hawkmoth.. and Emilie… and these weird animals… like Plagg.. but… how… how is everyone and everything connected… did we know them? Did we know Hawkmoth?”

Now all Gabriel could make out of the Man when he turned around to address him was that pair of burning eyes, hovering in the darkness, in the chilled void.

“Do you really expect me to tell you outright?”

“I guess not… asshole…”

Shadows engulfed the eyes, leaving only a voice ringing out into the air, stretched so thin and brittle it might break.

“Even I’m not sure I’m really past you. For all we know I’m just a construct made from impressions you have of your past self based on photos and context clues. Also, who taught you such foul language?”

“Plagg”

At the reminder of the odd cheese-loving cat-creature Gabriel had encountered, he perked up a bit. Regardless of the mysterious origins of the slightly terrifying tiny predator, Plagg was friendly, good at opening cans, and not attempting to eat Gabriel, which made him a potential friend in Gabriel’s book. Hopefully, one day, the cheese-cat-goblin would be his friend, and even if the cat-thing wasn’t his friend he’s still try to be nice to the little guy.

“Of course…”

The voice disappeared leaving nothing more than a whisper of cold wind against Gabriel’s face. Somehow, that Man had seemed even more miserable and wretched than Gabriel had been when he’d first woken up in this body, barfing included. Even though much of that Man had only existed in the past, Gabriel still worried for him.

Then, Gabriel woke up, his body disappointingly, completely and utterly human, and stared contemplatively out of the window as the sun rose and a particularly daring butterfly tried to greet him by brushing their little antennae against his tear stained cheek. He hugged his knees against his chest and sunk a bit further below the blankets, trying to dispel the chill that had settled deep into his bones. It would not do to let his frustration and gloom hang over him all day, so he tried to conjure up a positive attitude whilst gently petting the daring butterfly on the head with a shaking finger.

Around him, pale sheets lay in disarray, still damp with sweat and tears. They could be put back in order later, for now Gabriel let himself retreat inwards, trying to make sense of his dreams and the feeling of something jagged and icy and terrible lodged in his throat.

He sighed and hugged a pillow to his chest, withstanding the burning behind his unfocused eyes.


	6. Gabriel talks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the sparse updates, Writing has been difficult lately due to a combination of some IRL stuff and writer's block. This chapter turned out rather long based on how I set it up, and there were some bits I did rather like writing out.
> 
> I hope everyone enjoys it!
> 
> :8 D

Nathalie sat at her desk, hands splayed over her mouse and keyboard. Once she had finished checking her email, her attention turned to her calendar. Color coded indicators of company events, Adrien’s extracurriculars, local soap sculpture conventions, and Gabriel’s therapy appointments littered the grid of days. The box for today was empty save for a little red indicator reading “Police Interview (Interrogation?)”. 

Nathalie sighed, a pit of dread forming in her stomach. She desperately hoped things wouldn’t go south and that the police were not on to her or Gabriel. At least there was little to no risk of Gabriel blabbing anything important since he didn’t seem to be aware in the slightest of his past as Hawkmoth. The bitter taste of her morning coffee burned in the back of her throat while she made her way out of her office to find Gabriel. It wasn’t long before she heard a quiet hum that was occasionally broken by slurping noises and followed the sound to its source.

There, he sat, atop a pile of blankets, with a bowl of mushroom stew in his hands. At some point Gabriel had decided to forgo a spoon and began slurping directly from the bowl. His long legs were tucked under him in some odd combination of a wild animal’s perch and a human’s seated position. He was so engrossed in his meal that he did not notice Nathalie’s approach until she loudly cleared her throat. Gabriel started slightly before putting his soup bowl down and waving at Nathalie with a sheepish grin.

“Good morning, Nathalie! Can openers… are very useful!” 

Gabriel gestured enthusiastically at his bowl of stew, which he’d stirred with a can opener to make sure the ingredients were well distributed. Stirring one’s soup, in his opinion, was just as much of a delicate art as embroidery or cleaning one’s glasses without somehow smudging them further. He wasn’t really sure why Nathalie was looking at him so strangely for his “inventive” way of using can openers beyond their intended purpose.

“That they are… I was meaning to ask you, are you still up for the police interview?”

Gabriel twisted his body around so he could better face Nathalie as they talked, his joints cracking and popping as he did so, before resting his face in one of his hands. The concept of police and other specialized human jobs for providing things like food, homes, protection,and childcare still fascinated him. Outside of mass migrations and roosting during winter and fall butterflies generally had to fend for themselves. Their lives were too fleeting to form stable long-lasting communities.

“Yes, I can handle it”

“They might ask you some questions that will be difficult or frightening.”

Uncertainty briefly flickered across Gabriel’s features before being replaced by some odd combination of bravado and a desire to placate. 

“I still… want to help… even if it’s scary and difficult…”

“You’re completely sure? I can cancel it last minute if you have any doubts.”

Gabriel let out a nasally sigh and slid off of the blankets onto the floor, lying on his back with his arms splayed out on the floor. He tilted his chin so he was now looking up at Nathalie with a vaguely pleading expression

“Please, let me do this Nathalie… let me help…. seriously… I’ll walk down to the police precinct myself…. if I have to…”

Some part of Nathalie recoiled at the thought of Gabriel having to navigate the busy streets of Paris by himself while not knowing how to get to the precinct much less drive a car, ride a bike, or use public transport in order to arrive there in a timely manner. Perhaps she’d need to double check to see if his driver’s license was still valid and eventually teach him how to safely operate motor vehicles. She exhaled heavily through her nose and massaged her temples as she gazed down the bridge of her nose at what could only be referred to as Gabriel’s attempt at “puppy eyes”. 

“Alright, I suppose I’m just worried. I don’t want to you to end up disappointed if you can’t answer their questions or for you to be given questions you can’t handle or understand.”

While there was sincerity in Nathalie’s words, Gabriel felt almost as if she was still leaving something unsaid and decided not to push the matter. Now was not a good time to put further pressure on an already reluctant Nathalie to deal further with whatever about the situation was making her so deeply uncomfortable. Gabriel was worried about her emotional well being, but felt like he wasn’t one to talk since he was still struggling to understand his increasingly complex human thoughts.

“I understand…. but if I don’t do this… I’ll be left wondering…. what I could have done to help… and if those police cases could have been resolved if… I’d just tried to give them information…”

Determination seeped into Gabriel’s voice as he spoke. He suspected the questions would relate to Hawkmoth, based on the information he’d been able to glean from news reports on the television and online, despite his relative illiteracy. His name and his picture showed up enough in those news reports and online articles featuring infensuring on Hawkmoth that he’d been able to figure out that Hawkmoth’s case was tied to his own. Some articles even seemed to suggest that Hawkmoth had done something terrible to Gabriel. This information on top of the realization that Paris feared and loathed Hawkmoth was enough to motivate Gabriel to help. Hawkmoth had deeply hurt many people emotionally and mentally through akumatizations including his therapist (the poor bastard had been cursed with pigeon-based powers repeatedly) and Adrien’s friends. Somehow Gabriel had the gut feeling that his past was inextricably tied to the supervillain and that this might be part of the reason why the police were so interested in his case. He could not yet take into account his relative fame due to him not yet understanding that humans had such a concept that made one widely known to others outside of one’s close social ties for anything other than being a common threat. 

Gabriel reached into the blanket pile next to him and pulled his cane free from it before pulling himself into a standing position. The floor tiles were cool against his feet as he tried to smile reassuringly at Nathalie while she helped guide him back to his room and then a bathroom so he could pick out some clothes and clean up for his interview. Walking was a bit easier now, but he was aware of the fact that his gait was still frustratingly unbalanced and awkward, especially in comparison to other humans. At least balancing with such an odd upright body structure wasn’t as jarring or uncomfortable anymore. 

Once Nathlie left to handle some last-minute paperwork and make sure she had her story straight in case she was placed under scrutiny as well, Gabriel slipped into the bathroom to get ready. Showing up to events with humans improperly groomed and in one’s pajamas was apparently frowned upon, so Gabriel was trying to get into the habit of taking care of his own hygiene and wardrobe more actively. The edge of the sink bit a little into his palms when he leaned against it.

Gabriel hesitantly looked into the mirror at a face that he had learned to tolerate, despite how disgustingly human it was. It still took a moment some days for his mind to register that the man in his reflection was himself despite the months that had elapsed. The openness with which a wide variety of expressions crossed not only the features of other humans but also his own face still fascinated and baffled him a bit. There was a level of detachment he had with photographs that his reflection did not have, as it moved and changed with him while photos remained static. 

He frowned slightly and furrowed his brow as he went about the daily challenge of brushing his teeth and hair. With routine such things were becoming easier, and he couldn’t help but wonder how humans devised such complicated means of grooming themselves. Forgoing dental hygiene seemed appealing at times, but Nathalie and Adrien didn’t seem too keen on the idea and had to point out to him that dealing with the discomfort tooth infection and loss would bring was much worse than the mild inconvenience of regular brushing. 

Gabriel tried not to think too hard about how his frown looked in comparison to old picture of himself from the life he still couldn’t recall or why he was frowning in so many pictures in the first place. Somehow he’d managed to even have a stern frown in a picture from his own bachelor party while wearing a hat made of balloons and holding a live lobster. He still didn’t quite understand why his hair wasn’t streaked with grey in those older pictures, but he assumed it had something to do with human aging. The way his weird human flesh moved to accommodate his expressions was different as well too. 

Once Gabriel had finished brushing his hair and teeth, he limped out of the restroom to join Nathalie who raised and eyebrow when her gaze drifted down to his still-bare feet.

“It seems that you’re missing something…”

Gabriel shrugged and put on an obviously false “innocent” expression.

“Oh… whoops… I guess I’ll go… put on some slippers”

Before Gabriel could leave the room to retrieve his slippers, Nathalie shook her head with the corners of her mouth quirked almost imperceptibly upwards into what one might construe as a smile.

“You have multiple pairs of shoes at the foot of your bed. I know you find them unpleasant, but wearing them will help you put your best foot forward.”

In an act of theatricality, Gabriel sighed melodramatically and placed a hand against his own forehead.

“Ah, so you knew something was afoot… I’ll need to step-up… my game… the next time I try… to get out of something…”

“Yes, you are clearly a diabolical mastermind, but I still have to shoe-t you down and thwart your plan to avoid fiendish footwear.”

Gabriel nodded and slinked off before returning with the most garish pair of sandals that Nathalie had ever seen. One could only assume they were from back when Gabriel was still in school because it looked like an unholy combination of the aesthetics of the 80s and 90’s had vomited upon some unfortunate shoes. 

These shoes may have been an eye-sore, but at least Gabriel was willing to tolerate wearing them due to the bright colors and lack of restriction on his feet. After some fumbling with the buckles, Gabriel managed to put them on. 

Not long after, the ring of the doorbell echoed through the halls, sounding like a death knell to Nathalie but rather non-threatening to Gabriel. 

“Remember, look people in the eye when you speak to them, and don’t get too upset if nothing substantial comes of this. If the interview becomes too intense or you can’t understand what they’re asking of you, then its alright for you to stop. Don’t push yourself to your breaking point…”

Some expression vaguely resembling a reassuring smile crossed Gabriel’s face as he stood up a bit straighter. 

“Alright… I’ll do my best…”

Nathalie nodded and accompanied Gabriel down to the front door to greet the detective, who was followed in by a plainclothes officer. Pleasantries were wrapped up as the group made their way to a well-lit sitting room and the accompanying officer was left to wait outside the now closed door. 

Detective Kaur sat across from Gabriel and Nathalie, notepad in hand and a small manila folder placed on the table between them.

“What do you remember from before you were retrieved, Mr. Agreste?”

**   
  
**

Absentmindedly fiddling with the hem of his sleeve, Gabriel squinted up at the ceiling before turning back to the detective and speaking. His speech was slow and a bit stilted, like someone learning a new language on the cusp of being fluent, but still inexperienced enough to speak clumsily and awkwardly. 

“I remember some things from the past year, but… they’re jumbled… everyone was big and strange… I don’t remember their faces, but they were… mostly kind… I was small and helpless… but they gave me food and kept me warm and safe… I was a… butterfly”

“As in literally a butterfly?”

“Yes… I had really nice wings… they were so pretty…. I miss them...”

Detective Kaur feigned surprise at his revelation and wrote down the details he gave. Nathalie’s eyes widened marginally as Gabriel stumbled through his account of what little of his past he remembered. She mentally noted to bring this up with Gabriel again in private to try to glean whether his claim was a delusion or actual fact. In all honestly, Nathalie wouldn’t put it past Gabriel to somehow fuck up in such a way as to land hismelf in such a bizarre predicament.

“Really, that’s quite… interesting… Mr. Agreste.”

“I know… it probably sounds odd… but I really was… a butterfly…”

“While that is some potentially helpful information, we need further details on what happened. Does anything in these pictures look familiar to you?”

It seemed that the detective was taking Gabreil’s statement at face value despite the hints of skepticism and distrust that seeped into her voice, though not for the reasons Gabriel and Nathalie assumed.

The detective removed several crime scene photographs of various locations in Hawkmoth’s lair that had been uncovered, and placed them on the table. A quiet strained exhale left Nathalie’s lungs as she watched Gabriel pondering over the photographs, poised to intervene at a moment’s notice.

“A-alright… oh… um…. I think they might be… familiar… oh… I don’t know where… to start…. my mind is such a cluttered mess…”

Gabriel reached out a hand as if he wanted to pick up one of the photos, but he hesitated and let it fall back into his lap. Absentmindedly, he twirled strands of his greying hair around his fingers, tugging on it slightly. His brows furrowed as he struggled to make sense of the aching familiarity of those images and the fragmented bits of memories that cut into him like broken glass. Across from him the detective sighed and nodded, her gaze flicking to Nathalie’s briefly before resting on him once more.

“How about we start with anything particularly important you might remember from before that year, something that stands out… such as the circumstances of your disappearance?”

The added desire for a possible explanation his connection to Hawkmoth lay implied but unspoken in her words. While she wished to be more direct, she was very much aware of the fact that Nathalie might shut down the questioning. An unshakeable feeling of suspicion in regards to Nathalie’s odd behavior in the time that had elapsed since Mr. Agreste’s disappearance came over her.

Gabriel squinted at the laquered wood of the table in front of him, his head in his hands and his mind desperately grasping for old memories that were severely damaged or even completely lost to him.

“I don’t recall much… wait… let me try to… see if I can remember…”

A distorted half-formed memory floated to the front of his mind like a nameless, waterlogged corpse. His words, his breath, got caught in his throat. Recollection of agonizing pain and blinding confusion seared through his mind. Jumbled emotions such as frustration and regret overwhelmed him. The memory of the sheer discomfort of waking up to discover one’s own body radically altered now existed twofold in his mind. Disjointed thoughts about failing to do something and an odd sense of indignation emerged from the memory

A quiet gasp passed from his lips as he raised his head, eyes wide and pupils retracted behind his glasses.

“I wa… I did something stupid…. someone told me not to…. who… I…. so much pain… It hurt so bad…. Everything broke...”

The room around him felt distant, as he began to lose himself in the memory. It was almost like his old thoughts from that time had become scattered and jumbled to the point of many of them them seeming nearly nonsensical. There was sensations thought. The weight of something heavy in his hand. The warmth of something powerful and alive thrumming against his chest like a second heartbeat. 

Thoughts of desperation and arrogance and a fanatical desire for something crowded his head. His breath was catching in his throat and his heartbeat was thumping louder and faster, but he was no longer sure if it was the memory or the present he was living.

“It was so cold…. I was a man…. and then… I was a butterfly….”

Pain, searing pain. 

The jarring confusion of a strange body.

His head felt full of everything and nothing, and he let out a quiet cry.

“I don’t…. I can’t… there’s so much… and I can’t… reach… it hurts”

The jagged torn edges of his memory ached like a wound, and his attempts at digging around his damaged mind irritated the raw edges of the rips and tears and cracks.

“I feel like… I did something bad…. but I don’t know what…. why does it hurt?”

Gabriel’s knuckles turned white as he clutched the head of his cane ever tighter, and a thin sheen of sweat appeared on his brow. His breaths were coming out in short gasps. Through the haze he could hear concerned voices, and his voice cracked and faltered.

“Why does… remembering… hurt?”

A tingling numbness spread through Gabriel’s hands and his cheeks and he wept. He stared his pale, trembling hands, his eyes wild with confusion and terror. This resurfaced memory was so saturated with rage and misery, so disorienting and devoid of kindness. He let the memory go, only coming back with meagre scraps or sensations and flashes of thought. Only a moment later he was brought back out of his own mind by the sensation of a hand on his shoulder, and became aware of a deeply concerned and alarmed looking Nathalie staring at him. 

“I think it would be wise if we stopped things here”

The detective began packing her materials back up, a pensieve and stormy expression on her face. She had not expected that things would deteriorate so rapidly or that Gabriel would react so poorly to remembering. At the very least she had confirmation from the man himself that he had been turned into a butterfly.

“Of course”

“You won’t be needing anymore information from him anytime soon, right?”

With a hand tightly gripping her bag the detective nodded politely at Nathalie and Gabriel, a strange sense of foreboding finding its way into her gut.

“I suppose so, I’m sorry things went south.”

BeforeDetective Kaur could say anything else, Gabriel suddenly stood up in a stiff, awkward manner.

“Sorry… I need… to… go… bye”

Gabriel staggered off, shaking and struggling to keep some semblance of his composure, and Nathalie hastily shook the detective’s hand and sent her on her way before leaving to go check on Gabriel.

Soon she found Gabriel perched on top of a wardrobe, chirping and curling in on himself. She gently knocked her hand against the base of the wardrobe and spoke to him in quiet, soothing tones, making sure to make any sudden moves or speak too loudly while staying in his line of sight. Eventually she managed to coax him down, which was rather difficult due to Gabriel stubbornly hiding his face in his scarf and not acknowledging much of the world around him. 

“I’m sorry… Nathalie,,,, I couldn’t… I’m sorry…”

Briefly he repeated a mantra of apologies as his mind spiraled into all the ways he might have messed things up. He felt so helpless being entangled in matters far greater in scope than a butterfly would ever have to handle, terrified that he was ruining everything for himself and everyone around him. 

The sensation of a hand gently patting his back and a familiar soothing voice drew him out of his panic. Merely having someone he trusted trying to comfort him was enough to bring him some solace. Nathalie was his friend, and his mind associated her with safety and stability. No matter what happened she always seemed to keep her head high and maintain enough of her composure to weather whatever stressful situation was at hand. Still, he worried about her from time to time. Even if she was generally calm and collected, Gabriel was noticing how tense or uncertain Nathalie seemed at times, almost as if she was restraining herself from saying something. Whatever the troubles she was keeping from him were, Gabriel hoped that if she ever came clean about them to him he’d be able to help just like how she had helped him.

“Gabriel, breathe…”

Gabriel struggled to catch his breath between sobs, wiping away his tears and mustering a shaky smile. Some of the tension within him released as he drew in each breath and tried to focus on his current state, on the weight of his glasses against his nose and ears, on the feeling of his singular heart beating in his chest, on the feeling of air in his lungs, on the lingering smell of laundry detergent on his clothes. Regardless of his past or future, he was here now, alive and safe.

Despite how fear and frustration welled up inside him, he couldn’t let them consume him. No matter how much we wanted to wallow in his misery over his inability to help and his confusion and distress over his fragmented memories, doing so would hurt himself and the people who cared about him, and he balked at the thought of doing something he knew would hurt others.

“Right… I… I’m scared, Nathalie…”

Nathalie was silently relieved that she could no longer feel the ridges of his spine and ribs through his sweaters, and that his panic had subsided fairly quickly. Some part of her was worried about how reliant he was on her even now and just how easy it would be for her to hurt him even accidentally. His past was coming back to haunt him, and Nathalie didn’t know if she could give him the tools to handle it when she had her own demons to face. Hell, she was still recovering a bit from her “mysterious chronic illness unknown to science” and reeling from the revelation that her former boss either had actually become a butterfly or was at least deluded into believing he had been. 

Something in Nathalie ached as she whispered almost inaudibly, thinking Gabriel couldn’t hear her as she let him rest his head on her shoulder. 

“I am too... “

**   
  
**

————-______________————

**   
  
**

Days passed, with each being shorter and colder than the last. What time Gabriel spent outside in the garden was becoming few and far between, as he shied away from the cold and began tending to his indoor plants and the butterflies that accompanied him indoors more often as an alternative. He was trying to teach the butterflies how to do jigsaw puzzles, with mixed results. As it turns out, puzzle pieces were rather heavy and the more intricate patterns were lost to the blurry vision of butterflies.

Regardless, he was trying to keep a positive attitude whilst the gloom of dreaded winter began to encroach upon the world outside. He often found himself napping more often during the day in warm, enclosed spaces like the corners of rooms or underneath furniture. Whenever he was feeling particularly lethargic, he began trying to be more vigilant of his surroundings and sleep on top of the furniture instead like humans typically did. One day after trying to figure out how to knit pot-warmers for his houseplants and downing several mugs a tooth-rotting sweet mixture of heated apple juice, honey, and cinnamon, Gabriel clambered out of his chair and down the hall, before opening the nearest door and was met by the sound of voices.

“No, no provolone in sandwhiches is not a gouda idea!”

Adrien’s rather interesting debate with Plagg on the merits of cheese in various dishes was interrupted by the teen’s door swinging open. Standing in the doorway, with a hand still on the door handle was a rather confused and frustrated looking Gabriel. He sighed and awkwardly waved at Adrien and Plagg.

“Oh... Hi Adrien… Hi Plagg...

The pair, caught off guard by the tall man’s sudden entrance simply waved back until Adrien gained enough of his bearings to speak.

“Uh, hi…”

Plagg followed suit soon after, while leaning casually against one of Adrien’s school textbooks in some strange attempt to “look natural”. A faux carefree grin resting lazily on his feline face.

“Heyyy, what’s up, Big G?”

Briefly wondering why the small flying cat and his son looked so nervous, Gabriel merely shrugged and assumed it was because they were caught playing “the video games” (whatever those were supposed to be) instead of doing homework like Nathalie said Adrien was supposed to do when he got home from school. 

“Sorry… wrong door… just… looking for… the bathroom…”

With no further conversation and the incredibly awkward silence, Gabriel managed to uneasily shuffle away muttering about confusing building design. Something made Gabriel feel oddly certain that he was not supposed to be privy to whatever the young lad and floating feline were talking about. Once the sound of his cane tapping against the floor faded into the distance, Adrien turned to Plagg with mildly horrified look on his face, his voice a whisper filled with barely contained panic.

“Big G? Plagg, what the hell? Also, why are you so calm about this? My father now knows you exist, and you obviously are not a normal cat.”

Plagg floated over and patted Adrien’s shoulder with one of his nubby little paws in some vain bid at comforting the slightly panicked teenager.

“Don’t worry Adrien, he already knows about me, so this doesn’t change a thing.”

Adrien got up and began pacing frantically around the room, running his hands through his hair.

“Wait… let me get this straight. My father saw you at some point and you didn’t think this wasn’t relevant enough to bring up before?”

The cat Kwami merely shrugged in a nonchalant manner. 

“Eh, it’s not like he was going to tell anyone!”

Adrien’s hand nervously rubbed the tiny, carefully hidden runes tattoos behind his ear. They were a very recent addition born from months of study on Marientte’s part, but they allowed the heroes some greater level of freedom in sharing their identities. Anyone who agreed to get the tattoo would be allowed to learn heroes’ secret identities, as it prevented relevant identity information from being forcefully extricated from their minds or willingly confessed without the hero in question’s explicit consent. This spell could be bypassed if the one it was cast on had to reveal information to prevent death of or grievous harm or the hero they were outing had turned to evil and needed to be apprehended.

“But he doesn’t have any safeguards to prevent him from letting something slip…”

Adrien had yet to bring this up to Nathalie or his father. Even with protection, the truth would potentially be a heavy burden to bear, and Adrien was worried about putting more stress on them. They would probably get worried any time he went out as Chat Noir, even if the threats he faced now were smaller scale and less magically empowered than Hawkmoth, terrified that he wouldn’t come home in one piece. Adrien understood that terrible feeling, the fear of losing someone forever. Not to mention that the use of such spellwork on non-miraculous users was still in development and he might not even be able to tell them the truth without offering them a miraculous first until Marinette worked out all the kinks.

Plagg drifted lazily in front of Adrien with his tail swishing gently from side to side.

“Yeah, but he doesn’t understand what I am exactly. To him I’m just one among many strange things he’s trying to make sense of. Not to mention, he’s willing to keep quiet about stuff if you ask him nicely enough.”

“This certainly explains you ragging on him less than you used to…”

While Adrien plopped down into his desk chair, Plagg dugg some cheese out from the teen’s desk drawer.

“Well, I’m not one to kick a man while he’s down. I also have to respect his ability to down an entire can of cheese whizz in less than five minutes… that’s quite impressive for someone who is limited by the constraint of having a finite stomach made of flesh and mucus. I mean seriously, this is the guy who used to have a stick so far up his ass that it’s partially lodged in his brain.“

A look of dawning realization crossed Adrien’s face when he started to realize where his father had managed to pick up the colorful language that he’d promptly begun to misuse. It had taken a sizeable chunk of one of the man’s speech therapy lessons for him to learn what the explicit language really meant and that it was a bad idea to use such words around small children and polite company. Even weeks later Adrien was still trying to process the memory of his father gleefully swearing, peppering his sentences with poorly pronounced curses that rarely fit the context of whatever he was trying to talk about.

Deep down, Plagg was beginning to warm up a bit to the formerly taciturn businessman, although he wouldn’t let the man completely off the hook and would just as quickly snap back to resentful apathy should Gabriel return to his former ill-treatment of Adrien. His human-kitten’s life and happiness took priority, however fleeting and strange they might seem to a Kwami. 

“We have cheese whiz? Oh, right, we bought that when Nathalie tried to make nachos that one time without looking up any actual recipes… At least father hasn’t seen me transform and won’t necessarily make the connection to Chat Noir. We can just convince him that you’re just a really rare breed of cat and that you’re my secret pet!”

“Actually.. Um… there’s something else I might as well tell you... I think your dad was some cursed guy a couple other Kwami and I helped get un-cursed a few months ago. I’ve been… keeping an eye on him. ”

Adrien did a double-take as he tried to process this new information.

“What? People can get cursed? What exactly did the curse do to my father… er… or... the guy?”

“The guy we uncursed was stuck as a butterfly, the one that was Nino’s pet in particular…”

“Oh shit, that… alot of things would make so much more sense if it really was father..”

That they did, and many things became a bit more horrifying in hindsight as well, such as Subwoofer nearly dying on multiple occasions and exhibiting unnervingly human-like body language up until about half a month before he disappeared and Gabriel reappeared. Not to mention that would mean Adrien’s father would have been right there under his nose for over a year while worried and wondered.

“Yeah… your dad is a pretty good contender… he showed up right after that butterfly guy got returned to human form and scampered away, and your dad’s also got noticeably non-human tendencies now. I’m pretty sure the guy’s mind went kablooey not long before he got turned back, and your dad… well… you know...”

How many times had his father tried to contact him or tried to get help before his mind deteriorated to the point where he didn’t even know he needed help any longer while everyone assumed his antics were those of a dumb animal? How many times had Adrien hung out at Nino’s home, oblivious to his father being only a few feet away, living as a house-pet? At what point had his father lost enough of his mind to forget that the best friend of the teen who was taking care of him was his own son? 

“Shit… H-how am I going to break this to Nino?”

This question elicited a muffled response from Plagg, who was chowing down on a block of cheese.

“I dunno kid… I guess, I’d probably suggest breaking it to him gently, even if he is usually level-headed…”

With a frustrated hiss Adrien took out a piece of paper and began writing potential ways to bring this subject up to Nino without sounding delusional or like he was making some sort of sick joke.

“I mean, do I just go up and be like ‘Hey, turns out your pet butterfly might not be dead after all, in fact, he was probably my dad the whole time! Yep, the whole time people were searching for what might possibly be his dead body, he was sitting in your house less than five blocks away as your pet while his mind slowly fucking melted!’”

Plagg nodded sympathetically, vaguely aware of the fact that such things were considered weird by modern humans. Magic and curses were no longer common place and the average person was not likely to accept the idea that some random animal was a human cursed into a different form. Also, the fact that Gabriel was likely turned into a butterfly of all things would be especially eyebrow raising due to the animals now being heavily associated with Hawkmoth. Such an association would probably stain the reputation of butterflies and moths along with any potential future holders of the butterfly miraculous for years to come.

Hunched over his desk, Adrien sighed and gave Plagg a weak, nervous smile.

“Nino’s a pretty accepting person, but that still might not go over well. I’m worried he’ll feel guilty or something for not noticing for over a year.”

Adrien supposed that at least these circumstances were better than the previous theory that Gabriel had been tortured into his current state. At least while he’d supposedly been a butterfly, he was treated well. At least if he had been with Nino as a butterfly, he had been in good hands. 

His gaze briefly flicked down to a growing pile of papers on his desk. Each paper was a drawing or, as of more recently, written note that his father had given to him. It seemed like Gabriel had gotten into the habit of giving Adrien notes before he went to school with encouraging or positive messages written on them. Some of them even contained advice, which was usually rather nonsensical to Adrien. While the notes were rife with spelling and grammatical errors or nearly illegible most of the time, Adrien read every one he was given and kept them all. Perhaps it was rather sentimental, but he found the gesture oddly sweet, especially since he knew how much effort his father put into learning how to write even at such a basic level. 

With the context of the whole former butterfly thing, Gabriel’s messages about obtaining “flower juice” or trusting things that were shiny and looked “purple but more” or “best food-plant strawberry” being tastiest when left in the sun for a few hours made a lot more sense. He wondered if his father knew just how much Adrien had worried about him while he was missing and likely stuck as a butterfly. He wondered what his relationship with his father would be like today if the man hadn’t lost his memory and probably spent a year cursed to be an insect. 

Most worrying of all was the possibility of what happened to his father being connected to Hawkmoth, since Gabriel had disappeared around the same time Hawkmoth became inactive and had likely been turned into one of Hawkmoth’s “trademark” animals. 

“What the fuck even is my life anymore, Plagg?”

“I dunno kid, but you aren’t the first person to have a loved one turn into a wild animal, and you probably won’t be the last… at least you have it better than the kid whose sister was turned into a moose, permanently…”

For a moment Adrien silently mouthed the word moose, trying to wrap his mind around the idea of how a person would go about living as a moose, since they would not be able to fit within most door-frames, before muttering to himself and rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“This isn’t really making me feel better Plagg”

“It was worth a shot. How about we marathon some really bad movies and riff on them to take your mind off of things?”

Any tightness in Adrien’s shoulders and posture faded away a bit as a small genuine smile crossed his features.

“Yeah, alright, I’ll get out that cheddar popcorn that you seem to like so much.”

Both Adrien and Plagg were infinitely glad that Plagg could phase through the cheddar dust that he would inevitably get on his face and nubby little paws and deposit the cheesy residue directly into a trash can. A smirk rested on Plagg’s face as he contemplated the crunch of cheesy goodness between his fangs while Adrien dug a slightly dusty DvD out from under his bad.

“Awww, kid, you know me so well…”

————-______________————

Steam from Nathalie’s freshly brewed coffee wafted about the room as she contemplated the various types of scented soap she was considering purchasing online. Bitter caffeine burned in the back of her throat. Her hands hovered over the keyboard, as she became aware of a gentle knocking at her door. Then she turned and opened the door to reveal a slightly apprehensive but hopeful looking Adrien.

“There’s a meteor shower tonight and… there’s going to be an event and… Well… my friends are going with their families, and I was wondering if I could go with father.”

Nathalie weighed the pros and cons of signing off on something like this. Obviously Adrien going was a given, since he was already frequently going to events with his friends and classmates and such interactions with his peers would be socially enriching for him. She was less certain about whether letting Gabriel go to such a public event would be wise, though, as he might garner unwanted attention or experience some mishap due to his relative inexperience with socializing in moderate to large groups of people. Still, this could potentially be a good way to ease Gabriel into these sorts of things, since it would likely be rather casual and the attendees less scrutinizing of Gabriel’s strange habits and ineptitudes. At the very least the vultures from the tabloids had been showing less interest as the months had passed and they wouldn’t predict one of Gabriel’s first public appearances since his return to be such a mundane event. 

Nathalie took a swig from the rapidly cooling coffee still clasped in her hands and nodded solemnly, her glasses sliding down her nose a bit as she did so.

“Sure, just make sure to ask him first, and also make sure the venue is safe and secure.”

Perhaps it would be good for Gabriel to get out and socialize, maybe even make a few friendships with the parents or guardians of Adrien’s friends. She didn’t want him to feel too lonely if Adrien decided to go to university or get a job outside of Paris, since he’d probably end up grappling with empty-nest syndrome anyways and it would do Gabriel some good to have a greater social support system.

“Oh, thank you Nathalie! Would you also like to come?”

While Nathalie was making her way back to her desk she froze and turned back around, struggling to formulate a response. 

“You want me to come too?”

Adrien nodded enthusiastically, grinning from ear to ear.

“Of course! I’d really appreciate it and well… you’re pretty much family at this point.”

A great many things sat unsaid between them, and Nathalie couldn’t shake the feeling that the spectre of Emilie lingered over them, unsure of whether it was encouraging or foreboding. Would she have approved of Nathalie acting as a surrogate parent during the year that Adrien was effectively an orphan or Nathalie continuing to act as a guide and source of support for the teen? The woman hadn’t even finished a will before she had become a hollow, lifeless shell.

A strange sort of warmth bloomed silently in Nathalie’s chest as she smiled and idly swirled the beverage in her hands. 

“Thank you, I’m flattered, really. I suppose getting out and about for a bit could be… fun…”

“Great! I’ll go talk to father!”

Adrien dashed out of the room and throughout the halls until he came upon his father in the living room, who was perched on the armrest of the couch, staring intently at the TV, which was playing a documentary about birds. Occasionally Gabriel would flinch and frantically write something down, muttering under his breath. 

“Hey, uh…. What are you doing?”

Gabriel tensed up like a tightly wound spring before relaxing upon realizing that the noise he’d heard was Adrien’s voice. His eyes rapidly scanned the room before he whispered conspiratorially to Adrien.

“Making preparations….”

“For what?”

Gabriel gestured at the droning TV with an ink-stained hand, glaring at the flock of birds flitting about onscreen.

“Spring…when these feathery beasts return… they’ll feast upon the innocent… we’re big enough to fend for ourselves against this… menace… but butterflies… are not.”

The expression on Gabriel’s face was incredibly serious, as if he was describing a major public safety issue rather than the fairly routine and harmless migration of birds.

“Oh… ok…”

Adrien decided not to question his father further for fear of going down the rabbit hole of Gabriel’s strange grudge against birds. He had neither the time nor patience for another bird rant, especially with his father forgetting random words for things mid-sentence when he got especially fervent. 

“So, um, there’s a party tonight to watch a meteor shower that’s been set up by some of my classmates and friends and their families and I was wondering if you’d like to come….”

“Oh… I’d be... delighted... what is a party?”

“It’s when a bunch of people get together and do fun activities together. There’s usually food and stuff too. ”

“Parties sound wonderful! Huma- I mean…. people have such great ideas…. Let me go wash my hands.”

With an amicable wave of his hand, Gabriel stumbled off to go get ready. After washing his hands and brushing his hair, he rifled through his closet and began pulling out copious amounts of clothes and putting them on.

Regardless of any objections from Nathalie on the impracticality of such a wardrobe choice, Gabriel had somehow stubbornly managed to wear several scarves, three jackets, a sweater, a sweater vest, two shirts, leggings, pants, two pairs of socks, and four hats in varying shades of blue all at once. He’d only relented and removed some of the excess clothing when Nathalie pointed out that he seemed to be stuck in a perpetual droopy T-pose. Perhaps going out in public wearing so many layers that he could hardly lower his harms below his shoulders was a bad idea, even if the layers ensured maximum protection from the cold and hungry birds.

Left with only a sweater, jacket, and scarf over his more typical attire, Gabriel bid farewell to all of the butterflies staying in his room and made his way to the car.

Apprehensiveness welled up inside Gabriel during the drive to the event, because while he was excited to meet Adrien’s friends and their families and perhaps make some friends of his own, the thought of being around so many people at once seemed rather overwhelming and more than a little frightening.

When he stepped out of the vehicle, he was slightly startled by the puffs of steamy vapor he was breathing out, which was another odd side effect of having a mouth that seemed to only happen when he was in cold temperatures. Even with warm clothing and a warm-blooded body the cold still agitated him on an instinctive level. In the past few weeks he had gotten significantly better at quashing the urge to find a warm enclosed space to sleep away the winter in. 

Numerous eyes drifted to Gabriel before averting away from him in some attempt

to avoid staring and being rude. To most, he looked nearly unrecognizable while to the seldom few adults who had met him before he became an eccentric recluse were vaguely reminded of a nearly-forgotten stubborn, quiet young man who would be perpetually scribbling in a notebook in the backs of lecture halls or secluded corners of cafes. 

It was the first time he’d been seen wearing something that wasn’t a suit or a dour expression in years. With his reputation as a designer and public figure preceding him, many were caught off guard by his more timid and almost friendly demeanor. 

All the new faces and smells and sounds were incredibly jarring for Gabriel, filling his mind with a cacophony that he struggled to process. The sensation of Adrien’s hand on his arm helped him stay focused amid the jarring chaos around him. Then, he became aware of the chiming of a phone beside him, and turned to see Nathalie checking the identity of the caller.

“I need to go take this call, will you two be alright without me?”

“Yeah”

“Sure”

At the assurance from Adrien and Gabriel, Nathalie nodded and swiftly walked over to a relatively secluded corner of the park, pressing the phone tightly against her ear. For a little while, Gabriel and Adrien conversed until Gabriel noticed Adrien looking towards a group of teenagers.

“Oh… um… do you want to go talk… with your friends?”

“Yeah”

“Cool… while you ‘hang out’ with them… I could… go and befriend their families… if that’s good with you…”

“Sure, I’ll meet up with you again in a little while.”

Adrien nodded, smiled and cheerfully waved goodbye before walking off to go talk to his friends.

“Alright… have fun!”

Once Gabriel hard watched Adrien leave, he turned around to find someone else to talk to, but found himself uncertain and out of his depth. Everyone seemed to be joined in boisterous conversation, and Gabriel wasn’t entirely sure what to say or do, afraid to butt-in and impose himself on another’s conversation. Soon after, a couple noticed his confusion and mild distress and resolved to approach him.

Gabriel no longer had that standoffish, intimidating air about him like he’d had in his rare public outings before his disappearance. Now, he seemed more open and approachable and almost shy. Everything about him seemed less sharp and severe, like his edges had been worn down. The lanky man simply stood there, his gaze drifting from person to person from behind his glasses, which sat slightly askew on the scarred bridge of his nose, as he fiddled with his cane. Soon, he noticed the voice of a woman standing behind him, seemingly addressing him.

“Hello Mr. Agreste”

Gabriel turned around and was met with the sight of a petite woman and a large, burly man, both of whom had rather welcoming demeanors. For a moment, he froze, desperately trying to remember all he’d learned about how humans introduced themselves to each other and made new friends. The only introductions he’d been able to really have were to his therapists and Nino. He hadn’t really been able to do a proper re-introduction with Nathalie and Adrien when he initially ended up all human and whatnot because he’d been rather occupied by his own immense confusion. By the time he’d been aware enough to realize that humans didn’t introduce themselves via antennae touching and fluttering he was far beyond the point of (re)-introductions with Nathalie and Adrien (with the extra layer of awkward since they already knew him from before this whole fiasco). 

He pulled his mouth into an awkward smile and stammered out a response.

“Oh… um… hi…”

The woman smiled in return, as did her companion.

“I’m Sabine Cheng, and this is my husband Tom Dupain. We run the bakery a few blocks away.”

Their names certainly sounded familiar to Gabriel, and he was pretty certain that he’d heard them before from conversations with his son. At the very least he knew that Marinette was one of Adrien’s friends from school and extracurriculars that he would hang out with on a regular basis. He nodded and tried to remember what a bakery was supposed to be.

“Do you…. Um… know me… as in… have we been introduced…. Before… because if so… I’m sorry for… forgetting you two….”

“We haven’t been formally introduced, but yes, we’ve met before.” 

Tom held out his hand, and Gabriel stared blankly at it for a moment before recalling the human ritual of hand-shaking as a manner of greeting eachother and placing his hand in Tom’s. The burly man had a surprisingly gentle grip despite his massive size and apparent strength when he shook Gabriel’s hand. Sabine shook his hand next, her grip firm and steady. Gabriel let out a tremorous awkward chuckle when they’d stopped shaking hands, unconsciously rubbing the back of his neck.

“Sorry for the… awkwardness… I’m still going to speech therapy.”

“Oh, don’t worry, you’re doing splendidly!”

“Would you like to come talk with us? We could help introduce you to everyone else.”

“Oh… yeah, definitely… Talking to you two… has made me feel… a lot bread-er”

They led him towards a rather large group of other adults who were engaged in casual conversation and eating various snacks. How quickly Gabriel had let his guard down, and opened himself up to near-strangers who had proven to be kind to him, as they guided him through introductions with various new people who he also saw as potential friends. 

Initially, he seemed quite timid and unsure of himself, often hesitating or stammering when speaking to others. After a little while, though, he seemed to warm up to the other adults and the party and seemed to have somewhat gotten the hang of holding some semblance of a conversation. Throughout much of the conversations he ended up being engaged in, he acted quite intrigued by the lives of the new people he was meeting and the information about the world they were giving him.

Eventually he started to notice that while people were generally kind to him, quite a few of the people he interacted with acted quite strangely around him. Gabriel couldn’t quite place what exactly what was off about their behavior other than some of the people seeming surprised or almost sad when talking to him. He wondered if it had something to do with them having had known or known about his past self and their feelings on his current state. Regardless, he wouldn't ask directly for fear of coming off as rude and losing a potential friend.

During a lull in the conversation he was taking part in, Gabriel turned away briefly to see Adrien enjoying himself with his various peers. Seeing Adrien smiling and laughing with his friends, acting so carefree and happy, filled Gabriel with joy. It was becoming obvious to him that regular positive social interaction was very important to humans and maintaining their mental well-being. Such a concept was becoming less alien to him the more time he spent as a human, interacting with others for purposes other than basic pragmatic survival in the face of scarcity, His attention was then drawn back to some interesting anecdote brought up by someone sitting across from him.

Meanwhile the teenagers mingled by a table laden with food, drawn by the opportunity for free snacks and friends. Adrien was largely gravitated towards the teens who he knew were currently active as heroes in hopes of subtly bringing up certain, more serious topics at some point in the evening after they’d had some fun. While Adrien was discussing the lengths to which a journalist could ethically involved in the cases they were reporting on with Alya and Marinette, Marinette bumped into someone.

“Oh, hi Chloe”

Chloe scoffed and flicked her hair behind her shoulder and began stuffing cookies into her purse.

“I’m here for the caramel chocolate chip cookies, nothing more…. nice hat by the way, Marinette.”

Marinette watched Chloe saunter away, dumbfounded, before formulating a response.

“Uh, thanks?”

Alya leaned over to Marinette, muttering under her breath, with an equally shocked expression.

“Did Chloé just compliment someone besides Adrien or her parents unironically?”

“I think so?”

They returned to their original conversation for a while longer, eventually joined by Nino and Kagami. Allegedly, Kagami had somehow been able to cajole her mother into letting her attend under the pretense of “networking” with her peers, especially those potentially planning on starting an “astronomy club”. She and Marinette had already created mailing lists for potential “club” members and suggested their friends join so they could communicate online using the club as a cover for miraculous related antics. They could set up actual astronomy related activities so they could avoid arousing suspicion and so students who were non-miraculous holders that were legitimately interested in astronomy could join.

Eventually Adrien brought up what he’d learned from Plagg about the formerly cursed individual who had likely been his father. To his credit, Nino did a rather good job at remaining calm, taking a deep breath and staring bewildered at the ground for a moment before speaking. 

“Dude, if this is really true… then I washed your dad’s face with a Q-tip and took pictures of him wearing tiny hats.”

Kagami sighed and shook her head, swirling her mug of hot cocoa in her hands, feeling the warmth from the beverage bleeding into them.

“Even if Subwoofer wasn’t really Mr. Agreste, he was still a human being trapped in a butterfly body. I can’t imagine how terrifying it must be to be so tiny and helpless, almost completely at the mercy of far larger and more powerful creatures.” 

Beside her Marinette hummed in agreement, partially lost in thought as she ruminates on the implications of this revelation and ways to test and confirm it.

“How can we know for sure… maybe we could start looking into missing persons cases, John Does, and reappearances that line up with when Nino found Subwoofer and when the butterfly disappeared to see if Mr. Agreste is the only person whose case matches the timeline…..”

This elicited numerous nods and murmured agreements from the group, followed by Nino taking out his phone. Nino looked down at a video of Subwoofer on his phone and then back up across the field at Gabriel, who was staring intently at the food he was piling onto his plate while occasionally looking up to listen to the people around him. 

“I mean, like, I guess I can see the resemblance?”

“Resemblance? What? There is no way that this insect in any way resembles a human person.”

In response, Nino shrugged and made a vague gesture, trying to come up with a way to succinctly and accurately express the resemblance he was beginning to notice between his pet butterfly and the eccentric middle-aged man currently trying to make sense of a folding chair.

“It’s like… I don’t know… something about the way he holds himself, y’know, and something in his eyes. I’m, like, not really sure how I didn’t make the mental connection before, Maybe I just didn’t consider it even being possible, y’know? Hindsight is 20/20, I guess.”

Much of Gabriel’s body language, though translated oddly into human body, bore an uncanny resemblance to Subwoofer. Seeing these similarities between his old pet and his best friend’s dad was disconcerting, to say the least, for Nino. He decided not to dwell too much on how frustrating and upsetting the idea that Adrien’s dad had been right by them slowly losing his mind while his case had slowly turned cold was. Not to mention his past animosity towards the formerly overbearing and harsh man before he disappeared made things even more emotionally confusing and upsetting for Nino.

The man in question was attempting to eat a slice of pizza slathered in strawberries and chocolate sauce, much to the mild dismay of the people around him. Numerous people who were sitting near him or paying attention to him shuddered as they imagined just what that concoction Gabriel was so obliviously eating tasted like. Alya and Kagami grimaced while Marinette and her parents’ eyes glazed over while their minds filled with abject horror over such a culinary disaster.

“Yep, that’s him”

“Definitely”

“I can kinda see it now”

“I mean, think about it, the dude does kinda have the same weird energy as Subwoofer...”

They tried to move on with their conversation, mentally dumping the memory of the strawberry-chocolate pizza into the trash where it belonged. Eventually their discussion turned to future plans and then more casual topics like school and recent movies before petering out before they disbanded for the evening to socialize with others.

Meanwhile, Gabriel was silently trying to make sense of an oddly familiar word he had faintly overheard from some conversation his son was taking part in. He’d not really paid any attention to the conversation, as he didn’t want to be rude and eavesdrop, but that word stuck out to him.

_ Subwoofer _

He’d not heard it used in conversation before since he’d been forced into this human form, but it was floating around in his head among the vague sounds and sensations from his butterfly-memories. That collection of sounds, that word had popped up numerous times in his limited and fractured memories, spoken by the large, presumably human creatures who had cared for him and nursed him back to health. As he ate his strawberry pizza, he mulled over the likelihood that it was the human-sound name that the humans had given him when he was a butterfly and not obviously recognizable as a man who was called Gabriel. 

It was then that Gabriel realized where he knew the musically inclined teen that his son was talking to’s voice. That voice, made up a major part of the human language he’d heard in his fragmented disjointed butterfly memories. All along his son’s friend had been the big creature that had given him food and kindness, the one that had opened his home to Gabriel when Gabriel had been a helpless injured insect. 

Certain things made a lot more sense in hindsight. Gabriel resigned himself to lying awake in bed again, trying to make sense of his memories again while trying to figure out how in the hell he would be able to talk to his son’s DJ friend without being incredibly awkward (well, more awkward than he was on a daily basis).

****   
  


While nearly everyone else was engaging in conversation, Nathalie had returned from her phone call and slid gracefully back into the crowd. Her hand was hidden away in her pocket, still clenched in her hand as she forced a smile into her voice. Few noticed that her smile initially seemed strained, but as the night wore on it became more genuine and relaxed. While she navigated through various social circles of the adult family members of Adrien’s classmates, she always kept Gabriel within her line of sight, watching like a hawk for any paparazzi or potential abductors. 

Gabriel, of course, was oblivious to Nathalie’s vigilance and would cheerfully wave at her and talk to her whenever they passed by each other. At some point as the evening drew on, Adrien ended up approaching Gabriel and began talking to him again. Throughout the conversation, Adrien seemed to get more and more antsy until Gabriel tried to address his son’s behavior in a gentle manner. For a moment, Adrien seemed to steel himself before rapidly blurting out a bunch of words.

“Hey, is it alright if I start calling you dad?”

It took Gabriel a moment to make sense of what Adrien had said. Some fearful, anticipatory look that Gabriel couldn’t name passed through Adrien’s eyes. His voice sounded brittle and almost timid, and Gabriel couldn’t help but wonder why his son became so cautious over referring to him more casually and felt some dread seep into him at the potential reason.

“Sure… why do you… ask?”

A tension seemed to leave Adrien as he reached out to hug Gabriel, a gesture which Gabriel reciprocated. Moments like this, where he could make his son happy and be there for him as he grew up were something Gabriel savored.

“Oh, no reason, no reason at all…”

Adrien mumbled into Gabriel’s coat, his voice hoarse and oddly relieved, and something deep inside Gabriel ached. While Gabriel felt like there was something significant in what Adrien said, some vulnerability and meaning he couldn’t grasp, there was no concrete explanation he could come up with for this feeling. All he could do was try to support Adrien and expand his understanding of words and people and other such complicated things. This was one of many times Gabriel wished that words would come more easily to him, so he could more easily communicate with his son in a manner that the teen could understand. A language of colors and scents and flutters had little meaning to humans. 

The stars burned radiant and ancient above them, and Gabriel wondered if he’d looked up at those same stars with Emilie, and countless other people he would never truly know before. He wondered what he, what everyone looked like to them, fragile and fleeting. In the lessons he’d taken to make up for the years of schooling he’d lost, he’d learned that many of the stars he saw were merely the light from ones long gone that had only now traveled to earth. Maybe that’s what he was too, an echo, an insubstantial image of someone long gone, serving as a hollow reminder of that dead man whose face stayed hanging on the wall.

Maybe he wasn’t really Gabriel at all anymore. Maybe he was something, someone new. Maybe he should try to be his own person unfettered by who he was before and try to look forward to a better future. Still, he felt the urge to learn the truth of the past so he could gain closure, so he could have a chance to leave it behind without wondering. 

Eventually he had to stop staring at the sky for a bit due to the irritating ache forming in his neck, and Adrien pulled away before leaving and returning laden with steaming cups.

“Do you want some hot cocoa?”

Gabriel nodded, and Adrien handed him a cup, which Gabriel cradled in his hands and held close to himself to capture some of the warmth radiating from it. He breathed in the aroma of the drink, savoring its warmth as he slowly slurped it up whilst trying to avoid burning his tongue. His hands shook slightly as his lungs were once again filled with the cold night air. From somewhere in the crowd a voice exclaimed.

“Look! I think I spotted one!”

Gabriel gasped in shock and wonder as lights streaked across the night sky. It looked like the stars themselves were flying above him, and he realized pictures didn’t hold a candle to the real deal. The immense distance between himself and the shooting stars, which were (as he’d learned) not actually stars blew his mind a bit. 

In that moment Gabriel felt content, and moments like this were becoming more frequent, as he now had a son and friends to spend time with and hobbies to entertain himself and a world to explore. Human life would likely always strike him as a bit odd, but he was learning and adjusting and he could engage in human life for the sake of the people he’d come to care about. 

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed after that, as he got so wrapped up in what was happening around him and trying to enjoy himself that exhaustion crept up on him quite unexpectedly. The last thing that he remembered that evening was stumbling half asleep to a car, guided by Nathalie as he rambled semi-coherently about cross-stitching and constellations. Then he felt the cool glass of a window pressing up against his face as he sat slumped over next to Adrien in the backseat of a car. Nathalie’s voice had a strange quality when she spoke just before he drifted off completely.

“Adrien, I know it’s been a while since you’ve seen your cousin…”

The meaning of her words were lost to Gabriel as the world fell away and he was embraced by a now increasingly rare dreamless sleep.


	7. Gabriel eats some baked goods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before the chapter starts, I'd just like to clarify (since Felix shows up in this chapter) that in the general timeline I have going on, Gabriel got transformed before late season 3, so a lot of events that would have happened in episodes like Felix and Miracle Queen are either very different or didn't happen at all.
> 
> I hope this chapter is as good a read as it sounded in my head, lol.

The wind battered and buffeted the sides of the train as it pulled out of the station. It’s powerful gusts wailing, drowning out nearly all other noise, even the rhythmic thrum of the train’s machinery. Thick metal and rubber lining the walls of the train muffled the worst of the wind and cold, insulating those inside. 

Less than two years ago, the train had been nearly devoid of passengers who had Paris as their destination. Whether it was his intent or not, Hawkmoth had deterred visitors (aside from the occasional thrill seeker or individuals who failed to keep up to date with the news) to the city he regularly terrorized.Paris’ tourism industry was still recovering from a crippling blow with only a trickle of people cautiously visiting in the extended lull in the supervillain’s activity.

**   
  
**

Amelie brushed some half-melted snow off of her jacket as her son sullenly watched London disappear into the ever more distant fog and snow. This trip presented an opportunity to spend time in slightly milder temperatures (and snooping, though Amelie was loathe to admit to such things) and hopefully dispelling the gloom that had been lingering over Felix.

“Darling, what’s wrong? You seem more morose than usual.”

A small scowl crossed Felix’s face as he turned towards Amelie. He sighed and absentmindedly wiped some condensation off the window with his sleeve. 

“Is Paris… safe, right now?”

Amelie leaned back into her seat, pulling her hair out from behind her and over her shoulder. 

“I’d assume so, there haven’t been any ‘eccentrics’ in spandex running around there in months… well, aside from the friendly ones.”

A gentle assuring smile rested on Amelie’s fact while she pulled her wallet out of her bag. After Amelie and Felix had ordered some warm beverages and snacks, Felix’s gaze drifted back to the scenery rapidly rushing by. He rested his sharp chin on his hand and looked back at his mother. 

“Maybe there’s something in the water in Paris. I mean, the possibility of actual magic is interesting, but for all we know it’s just an elaborate hoax with lots of collateral damage.”

For a moment, Amelie looked down at her hands, which she had folded in her lap before looking up and shaking her head. 

“I’m not sure, but they won’t cause any trouble for us as long as we stay out of their way… Try to see this trip as a fun little holiday, a way to get away from all the stress and strain of university applications.”

Felix scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest, faintly dreading the idea of a supervillain attack. Even if the so called villains and heroes weren’t actually magical, he knew with his tumultuous at best luck Paris’ most notorious villains would suddenly return and he or his mother would get caught in the crossfire. Living in fear of getting turned into a cactus or melted into goo did not sound especially fun or relaxing. 

“Well, if I get eaten by a giant magical monster, I’ll haunt you… Also… holiday? It’s not like I can’t have just as good a vacation at home, especially without having to worry about getting crushed by rubble or something…”

This elicited and nod and a hum from Amelie, who was being handed their refreshments. She passed Felix’s food and beverage to him. The warmth radiating from the cups made her hands sweat a little bit, and she wiped her hands off on a napkin. 

“Ah, but you can spend time with Adrien…”

Felix sighed and slumped down a bit in his seat, furrowing his brows. Amelie tilted her head to the side a bit in concern with the corners of her mouth turning downwards slightly, when she noticed the troubled expression on her son’s face.

“Why the long face? You used to love playing with Adrien when you were little...”

“I know… I’m just worried things will be awkward, I guess… Everything is so different now, mum.”

Felix squirmed a bit, trying to seem less distressed than he really was. His head dipped subtly lower as he nibbled on an apple slice.

“We can handle any unexpected changes together. Whether it’s Adrien and you having grown apart or something related to whatever mysterious mental problems your uncle has now. You are the most clever and adaptable person I know, and I’m not just saying that because I’m your mum! Remember to think of tough social situations as a performance like one of your magic shows.”

Popping the rest of the apple slice into his mouth, Felix nodded. The teen looked somewhat less displeased, but Amelie couldn’t help but notice that he still seemed a little troubled. She looked inquisitively into her son’s eyes until he relented and opened up a bit more on what else was bothering him.

“It’s not just that. I have a lot of weird conflicting feelings…”

“How so?”

“Well I guess it’s because I have all these negative feelings swirling around inside me? I’ve been trying to handle all the nasty feelings and urges that I get, but these hit really close to home. It’s probably rather cruel of me, but I think I resent the fact that my uncle came back while my aunt and my father are still gone. I feel terrible for not being happy for Adrien getting at least one parent back. Maybe… maybe I’m also a little jealous that someone he lost miraculously returned while dad’s never going to come back…”

**   
  
**

A pained expression flashed across Amelie’s face before it returned to its typical blithe demeanor. Amelie understood Felix’s sentiment all too well. Far too many times some bitter part of her mind resented the fact that her brother-in-law had returned from his mysterious disappearance rather than her sister. Of all the people who were part of her family by law or blood that she had lost to return, it had to be the person who was barely civil with her and had the emotional range of a fig newton, only showing distant politeness at best towards her because her sister was married to him. After Emilie had disappeared, the man had dropped all but the barest pretenses of hospitality and kinship towards not just Amelie, but pretty much anyone in his severely limited social circle. 

Amelie gently tilted up Felix’s chin and smiled, trying to exude confidence and sympathy.

“You can’t change how you feel in your heart, but you can change how you act on your feelings. The fact that you feel comfortable enough to voice your feelings, even the negative ones, is a step in the right direction.”

With a relieved laugh, Felix nodded and smiled at Amelie.

“I… you’re right… thanks, mum.”

The rest of the train ride was spent in comfortable silence as Felix looked out the window and listened to music while Amelie read a rather hefty book that had numerous hands and eyes on its oddly smooth and shiny cover. A few hours later, they arrived in Paris and picked up their rental car. After dropping their things off at their hotel, they drove to the Agreste manor.

**   
  
**

Light spilled through the door, almost blinding when Amelie and Felix entered the Agreste manor. They were greeted upon entering by a beaming Adrien and a stoic Nathalie. Adrien practically skipped over to Amelie and Felix, and hugged them both.

“Hi, welcome! Sorry for the trouble, but I need to get my dad and tell him you’re here!”

The teen looked over towards a rather average looking closet door (well, average by that standards of the opulent mansion), and made his way over to it. He pulled open the door and muttered into the various coats and scarves before taking a step back. The garments writhed and a muffled trolling noise could be heard coming from within the closet they rested within. Out of the closet stepped a gangly awkward figure with a familiar face. The sight of Gabriel waving enthusiastically with an accommodating and slightly nervous grin on his face after emerging from a coat closet was more than a little jarring. 

“Hello, friends! I’m so happy to get to know you again… because… um… I forgot a lot of things, but that’s not the point of the introduc-... conversation? … so… um... hooray! You’re here!”

Clothes that Gabriel was wearing seemed to be uncharacteristically casual to Felix and Amilie. The outfit was still as flamboyant and ridiculous as they had expected, though. He looked surprisingly happy and healthy (aside from the scars, cane, and missing fingers) for a man who was rumored to have been kidnapped and brutally tortured by Hawkmoth, but Amelie supposed that could be chalked up to the past several months of therapy and proper healthcare and nutrition. 

Amelie plastered a pleasant smile across her face and politely shook Gabriel’s good hand.

“Oh, Gabriel, it’s been so long! After your little disappearing act we all feared that you were gone for good, and so soon after my poor sister! How are you doing?”

“Sorry for… uh… disappearing… I’m good… I’ve been doing normal human stuff... like eating food with my teeth and holding things with my hands and talking to people with words!”

For a brief moment after he spoke, Gabriel looked down at his hands as if he had suddenly become rather conscious of them and was mildly unnerved by how they moved. 

Although her French was a little rusty from disuse, Amelie noticed that Gabriel’s speech was notably different from the last time she’d seen him in person. Along with his grammar and word choices being polite yet notably less formal, he also seemed to stumble over his words more often. That wasn’t even getting into how oddly forthcoming he was with his response and how his body language was much less closed off than it had been in previous encounters Amelie had with him. 

She tried to formulate a response to his particularly odd description of his recent activities.

“Oh, that’s… nice. ”

They smiled awkwardly at each other for a few moments Gabriel began nervously shifting from foot to foot and rubbing at the back of his neck. His gaze gradually drifted upwards as if he was trying to think of what to say next until he began speaking again.

“How have the two of you been doing? What’s it like riding a train? Is it scary?”

“Oh, we’ve been absolutely splendid!”

“Wait… haven’t you been in a train multiple times before?”

Nathalie cleared her throat and motioned for everyone to follow her to the dining room before speaking.

“He hasn’t been in a train since he lost his memory.”

Gabriel nodded solemnly, for to him forgetting long train rides was both a curse and a blessing. Amelie hummed in concern and an unreadable expression crossed her face while Adrien tried to start a tentative thread of conversation with Felix. The change in Amelie’s expression was not visible to Nathalie, as she had her back turned to the other woman and was walking a few feet ahead of the others. A few moments passed before Amelie began to speak again, her voice carrying an odd lilting cadence.

“Does that mean he’s forgotten about my request to get the rings back? Do you happen to still have yours, Gabriel?”

Upon realizing Amelie had addressed him directly, Gabriel started slightly and scratched his head in confusion.

“Rings? What rings? Like… coffee rings… on a table? I don’t have those because Adrien taught me how to use a coaster, sorry.”

Nathalie sighed and stopped in her tracks, turning around to face everyone else. They had arrived in the well-furnished dining room, absurdly long table and all. A stormy and rather strained expression crossed her face and her voice was quiet and curt, when she looked directly into Amelie’s glimmering green eyes.

“While the location of Emilie’s ring is still unknown, Gabriel’s is likely sitting in an evidence locker at the police station. We have yet to go through the extensive paperwork to retrieve it from police custody.”

“Oh, what a shame! I could take care of the paperwork for you, and keep the ring nice and safe in the Graham de Vanily safety deposit box until it’s twin is found!”

Not even bothering to continue facing Amelie, Nathalie walked away and sat down at the table. Her hands rested in a folded position on the table in front of her and she sat with a near perfect posture.

“That won’t be necessary, ma’m, I’ve already begun the process.”

Amelie responded with a saccharine smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes and sat down next to Felix, who was trying not to stare at Gabriel. This was a rather difficult thing to do, since Gabriel had a rather large butterfly emerging from his hair and crawling down his face. Noticing the butterfly, Nathalie cleared her throat and sent Gabriel a pointed look.

“Remember, no butterflies at the table”

Gabriel quietly chirped and trilled into his shirt sleeve, and a cloud of colorful insects billowed forth from his hair and clothing, flying out of the room almost as quickly as they had appeared. While Felix and Amilie were trying to make sense of what just happened, Nathalie calmly strolled out of the room while Adrien gently picked a stray butterfly up off of his plate and placed it on a nearby wall.

Everyone was sitting at one end of the table, leaving over half of it completely vacant. Amelie wondered how long it had been since some of those chairs had been occupied. All the chairs seemed to be constructed of lacquered walnut wood, which was, ironically in Amelie’s mind, the same kind of wood her husband’s coffin had been made of. It was, to her, a truly beautiful and volatile kind of wood.

“So, how have things been at school, Felix?”

“As good as they could be, considering the circumstances. I’ve started visiting universities, and I’m considering majoring in literature or the performing arts.”

Adrien nodded and smiled enthusiastically.

“Wow, that’s awesome Felix! Those sound like really interesting things to study.”

This comment from Adrien elicited a tiny smile and nod from Felix, who silently took a bit out of his food without breaking eye contact with Adrien. Amelie took a sip from her glass of water and turned to face Adrien with an inquisitive look in her eyes.

“Oh, Adrien, what are you planning to do once you graduate highschool?”

“Well… I was thinking about going into teaching… or maybe astrophysics if I’m ambitious. I’m actually applying to the same university as my friend, Nino, and we agreed to be roomates if we ended up both going there”

In response Amelie nodded in approval, and went back to drinking her lukewarm cup of water. Conversation and consumption of food and drink continued on as normal until Felix noticed something odd that Gabriel was doing with his food. Felix raised an eyebrow and sputtered a bit in confusion.

“Why are you putting so much butter on your food?”

Gabriel shrugged, still applying absurdly copious amounts of butter to his waffle. 

“It’s butter than nothing… and it’s taste makes me feel better when I get in a… jam…”

This statement was followed by Gabriel picking up a nearby jar of jam, scooping out a sizeable blob of its contents, and slathering it onto his waffle as well. At that point the dish was more topping than waffle. Gabriel then folded the waffle in half and picked it up like it was a sandwich before taking a large bite out of it. He was about to continue eating, when he noticed Nathalie silently gesturing to her face. Picking up on the visual cue’s meaning, Gabriel quickly wiped away any excess butter and jam that had dribbled onto his face. 

Conversation petered out a bit after that, and at times there seemed to be a strange heaviness in the air. Felix awkwardly pushed his food around his plate with a fork held loosely in his hand. Now that the conversation had devolved into awkward small talk, he found himself getting rather bored. To occupy himself, he began absentmindedly practicing his “thumb removal” magic trick, tuning out his surroundings until he heard a horrified gasp. He looked up to see Gabriel staring at Felix’s hands with an alarmed and concerned expression.

“Felix, your thumb….. You removed it!”

Felix furrowed his brow, and realized that he was currently mid-thumb “removal”. It then dawned on him that Gabriel seemed to genuinely think that Felix was currently holding his suddenly detached thumb, despite the lack of blood or concern on Felix’s part. 

“Don’t worry, I’m fine I used ‘magic’. See, my thumb is fine.”

Felix “reattached” his thumb and wiggled his fingers to show that they were intact and still attached. In hindsight, Felix realized that absentmindedly practicing the thumb removal magic trick was probably tactless and impolite in the presence of someone who was actually missing wingers. Surprisingly, Gabriel didn’t seem offended in the slightest, and in fact seemed to be amazed at Felix’s casual use of “magic” now that Felix’s thumb was now re-attached. In fact, it seemed any dismay the man had shown over seeing the initial trick had been genuine concern over Felix possibly being hurt. When the man asked about what other kinds of magic Felix could do, Felix pulled a coin out from behind Gabriel’s ear and did a simple card trick to demonstrate, eliciting gasps, applause, and compliments from the shocked and delighted man. 

The magic tricks were so basic and so frequently used that they failed to elicit much reaction from most people, yet Gabriel seemed to be genuinely baffled and gullible enough to consider them actual acts of magic. It took Félix a moment to realize that the man didn’t seem to be humoring him with over exaggerated surprise like some tried to do. Either Gabriel was a master manipulator and actor or he was genuinely unaware of how sleight of hand worked and had forgotten ever seeing someone do a “magic trick” before. Back when Felix was little, the man hadn’t even bothered to humor Felix’s clumsy attempts at magic tricks, simply nodding and rushing off to be somewhere else while Felix’s parents and Emilie feigned surprise and applauded. 

Felix supposed that Gabriel was possibly a living testament to how fragile human memory was, and how reliant people were upon it to shape their personalities and perceptions. Though Felix supposed the personality shift could be independent of the memory loss, and he assumed he would likely never know. It wasn’t as if the circumstances of what messed with Gabriel’s mind were widely known, and it wasn’t as if those circumstances could be repeated and observed in multiple individuals without being terribly unethical and inhumane. 

Not long after, Felix excused himself to go use the restroom. As he was making his way to his destination, he passed by the slightly ajar door to Adrien’s room. Guilt wormed its way into Felix’s mind as he pushed open the door, but he couldn’t resist the overpowering urge to snoop. The room was largely the same to how Felix remembered it looking when he’d last visited, with the exception of multiple new posters and photographs adorning his cousin’s walls and desk. Most of the photographs were of people Felix didn’t recognize, with the exceptions being family photos and pictures of Adrien with Nathalie. Felix made a cursory note of the fact that the family photos seemed to almost exclusively of Adrien’s maternal relatives, including Felix himself, with the only evidence of Adrien’s father’s side of the family existing being photos of the man himself. 

One particular object that quickly drew Felix’s attention was Adrien’s computer. The device was still emitting a quiet hum even though the monitor was dark. Felix wiggled the mouse until the monitor turned on again, revealing a screen requesting a password. When Felix ran his hand underneath Adrien’s desk, his hand brushed across a thin papery object. With a tug he pulled out a sticky note containing all of Adrien’s passwords. It seemed that, aside from the teen’s sunny disposition, Adrien’s tendency to forget passwords and put them on sticky notes under his desk was still a constant over the last few years. Once Felix managed to type in the correct password and was allowed access to the content on Adrien’s computer, he noticed a webpage that was still open. 

The webpage seemed to be for some sort of “astronomy club” with various pages containing things like calendars of club events, club information, and information on space and various well-known celestial bodies and groups of celestial bodies. Felix clicked on the menu option for the astronomy and space information, and began scrolling through the various pictures and bits of text before coming across one that stood out. 

“The Cat’s Eye nebula?”

The image of the Nebula on the webpage seemed a bit off. The text underneath it was a subtly lighter shade of green than the rest of the image titles and descriptions. Going on a vague hunch that this simply wasn’t a flaw in amateur web design, Felix hovered the cursor over the image and clicked in the center of the nebula. The computer’s screen went dark for a few moments, and Felix felt a jolt of panic over possibly crashing his cousin’s computer. He instinctively removed his hands from the keyboard and moved away, but halted when he noticed a single pixel in the center of the screen. After a few moments more, the pixel expanded gradually until it formed a white box of colored text. The box seemed to be some sort of simple chat room, and Felix, unable to contain his curiosity, began reading the most recent messages.

_ SwordaTired has joined the chat _

SwordaTired: Hey

SwordaTired: Friends

SwordaTired: Sorry to interrupt the theorizing, but Longg is speaking in tongues again… help

TotallyTestudines: Oof, “pet” illnesses totally suck…

TotallyTestudines: Rest in Pepperoni, my dude

Bonnibug: That happens when they perceive too many planes of existence at once! Lol

Bonnibug: Dissolve some salt and vinegar in warm water, and soak a paper in it for 6 minutes. Bonnibug: Then, inscribe these symbols on the paper using a pen.

Bonnibug: CuneiformTablet37.jpeg

Bonnibug: Feed it to Longg and they’ll be right as rain!

SwordaTired: Thanks!

_ SwordaTired has left the chat _

_ All users have left the chat _

_ PawsibleDeniability has joined the chat _

PawsibleDeniablitiy; Oh shittttt

_ PawsibleDeniability has left the chat _

_ PawsibleDeniablity has joined the chat _

**   
  
**

“What the hell is this shit? Is this some kind of joke?”

The bizarre conversation rolled around in Felix’s brain, sparking ever further curiosity within him. Felix couldn’t be sure, but he strongly suspected that this “PawsibleDeniability” account belonged to Adrien. 

“Adrien, what the hell have you gotten yourself involved in?” 

Felix muttered to himself as he hastily scrolled up to find some messages from a few days ago. 

**   
  
**

_ Bonnibug has joined the chat _

**   
  
**

Bonnibug: Guys, I got some info

Bonnibug: TranscriptX.jpeg

Bonnibug: It’s in the secure folder, don’t download it on your personal devices.

_ Foxtrot has joined the chat _

FoxTrot: Wow, awesome job, BB!

FoxTrot: Ok, so after reading this… and with everything else we’ve compiled, I’m pretty sure Subwoofer really was PD’s dad.

Foxtrot: I’ve also got some theories floating around…

Bonnibug: ?

Foxtrot: I know this probably sounds weird, but I think PD’s dad may have worked for HM or something.

Bonnibug: :0

Foxtrot: I mean the clothes found on top of the fact that he was turned into a butterfly? Definitely a HM connection!

Foxtrot: If HM is behind his disappearance, why didn’t he go after someone like the Mayor or some other public official, whose disappearance would cause more widespread mayhem by destabilizing the local government?? Why didn’t he use the disappearance to generate more akumas??? 

Foxtrot: Perhaps PD’s dad knew too much about or defied Hawkmoth and threatened to tell authorities or something? So HM had to dispose of him in a way that wouldn’t leave behind a large and difficult to hide human body…

Foxtrot: the part I flip flop on is whether he associated with HM willingly… because while PD’s dad was kind of a scumbag back then he doesn’t seem to be the type willingly to be subordinate to someone else unless he absolutely had to…

Bonnibug: Not to mention HM’s… unfortunate... fashion sense

**   
  
**

_ TotallyTestudines has joined the chat _

TotallyTestudines: Dudes… woah

TotallyTestudines: So like, based on FT’s theory… what if HM bribed or blackmailed him or something

TotallyTestudines: for like his money and property or whatever

TotallyTestudines; maybe with, like, something embarrassing or even a hostage? There’s plenty of kidnappers who tell the dudes they’re trying to get a ransom from or blackmail from to not tell the police or the kidnapping victim’s other loved ones by threatening to kill or hurt the victim

Bonnibug: holy cow, yeah… although it sucks that there’s not much solid evidence that we could use to find or rescue a potential hostage if there even was one like… maybe

Bonnibug: I don’t really want to think of it

Bonnibug: and I hope this isn’t the case

Bonnibug: maybe the person HM was using as a hostage to possibly force PD’s dad to comply

Bonnibug: was PD’s mom

**   
  
**

Foxtrot: Damn… I hope this isn’t the case either

Foxtrot: especially since if this is what really happened

Foxtrot: then her chances of still being alive and/or sane are super low, considering the state PD’s dad was found in and the fact that she probably wouldn’t be of any use to Hawkmoth anymore...

TotallyTestudines: same : (

Foxtrot: Regardless, something serious went down

TotallyTestudines: yeah, PD’s dad has some gnarly scars

Foxtrot: and I’m pretty doubtful that PD’s dad would fake having amnesia or willingly choose to be turned into a butterfly

TotallyTestudines: Yeah, the dude seems too proud to be so dependent on others and act so absurdly without breaking character…

TotallyTestudines: if the guy couldn’t even fake being happy on his son’s birthday he probably couldn’t fake such a radical change in behavior and not knowing a bunch of basic stuff

TotallyTstudines: not to mention he totally wouldn’t be cool with the indignity of being turned into a small animal

Bonnibug: yeah

Bonnibug: Should we eventually release this information to the general public? 

Foxtrot: OMFG, can you imagine CB’s reaction if she found out she nearly killed her friend’s dad with a copy of “The Metamorphosis”??? Seriously, tho, we should probably investigate the situation further and talk with PD when he’s not busy since it is his dad we’re talking about…

TotallyTestudines: yeah, totally

Bonnibug: true

Bonnibug: Guys, we need a game plan moving forward

Upon looking at his watch and realizing several minutes had passed, Felix quickly clicked the large exit button on the chat box, returning Adrien’s computer to its normal state. He quickly slunk out of the room, closing the door behind him. Soon, he had made his way back to the dining room, and once he entered everyone inside turned to look at him. Felix returned to his seat, and felt the need to explain his extended absence.

“I noticed I had some food on my shirt sleeve and I had to wash it off in the sink...”

Noticing that Felix either had his hands held behind his back or under the table since he returned, Amelie went silent for a moment before smiling knowingly at Felix and nodding.

“Oh, yes, I do believe I saw some on his sleeve earlier. He does care an awful lot about cleanliness, and stains are terribly hard to wash out of light grey shirts.”

Amelie resolved to ask Felix what exactly he had gotten up to while he was gone, and secretly hoped the teen had found some sort of useful information. Everyone mingled and made fairly uneventful conversation for a few more hours. At multiple points Adrien tried to tentatively reconnect with Felix, and they ended up awkwardly exchanging phone numbers and emails on top of discussing favorite books and activities. Eventually the sunlight waned and Amelie and Felix had to go back to their hotel to sleep, as they had numerous activities in Paris and the surrounding areas that they had planned for the following few days and they needed adequate rest. 

As Felix and Amelie were about to walk out the door, Adrien held out his hand. When Felix took Adrien’s hand they pulled each other into a hug, which lasted for several seconds. By the time they pulled away from each other, Adrien seemed to have all the gleeful excitement and affection of a golden retriever.

“Don’t be a stranger!”

A tiny tentative grin spread across Felix’s face as he nodded.

“Of course, Adrien, it was nice seeing you again.”

“We should meet up again sometime.”

Felix narrowed his eyes slightly and his expression became deadly serious.

“I’ll hold you to that… by the way…”

“Are you alright?”

With an odd amount of solemnity, Felix put a hand on Adrien’s shoulder and looked him straight in the eyes.

“Adrien, if you ever need to talk… if you ever feel like you’re getting into trouble and you need someone to bail you out, someone who won’t mind dealing with situations that are terrible or of dubious legality… you can just call on me.”

“A-alright, Felix, thank you!”

————-______________————

Snow fell in white shimmering flurries from the soft grey clouds above. Aside from the splashes of color from buildings, cars, and early holiday decorations, the world outside the window seemed to be painted in monochrome.

Gabriel watched the snow fall before he went about tending to the plants that the butterflies that had chosen to visit him and live with him were living in. Some of the younger ones were the grandchildren or great-grandchildren of the butterflies he’d initially befriended. Few of the original friends he’d made were left, and the few that remained were quite elderly by butterfly standards. Gabriel wrote down each butterfly’s name in a little notebook so he could remember them all, even after they’d migrated away or died. It was starting to dawn on him that humans lived much longer lives than butterflies. 

He let some of the more curious butterflies tap their little antennae against his face, quietly clicking and chirping in response, before carefully removing a small amount of flowers from some of his plants. Then, he hobbled off to pour a glass of warm water and mixed flowers in along with some sugar to make a tooth-rottingly sweet beverage that vaguely resembles tea that he eagerly slurped down. It had taken some research and careful instruction from Nathalie for him to figure out which plants were safe for human consumption. 

After he had drank his fill, Gabriel poured the remainder into a shallow dish for the butterflies that had accompanied him to drink from. An ache throbbed in his right wrist, and he shifted his cane to his left hand while he gingerly rotates his right in hopes of dispelling the discomfort. He then meandered about, trying to decide what to do next before noticing how full his laundry hamper was. With one hand, he lifted the hamper by its fabric straps and lugged it down the hallway, hoping that no clothes would fall out of the hamper and make a mess.

After dragging the laundry hamper into the laundry room behind him, Gabriel began sorting the clothes by color and fabric type. Eventually the slightly messy piles accumulated a good amount of clothes and the hamper was now empty. Similar piles got dumped into the washing machines together once Gabriel had added the laundry detergent and selected appropriate settings on the machines.

Frothy warm water and clothes swirled around inside the washing machines, and Gabriel crouched in front of the machines to watch them spin in accordance to some primal fascination his subconscious still had with bright colors and movement. Because of this, laundry was Gabriel’s favorite chore. It was an intersection of his fondness for clothes and the mind-numbing process of watching the machines run, along with the warmth of the clothes when he removed them from the dryers.

Some minutes later he pulled himself away from the mesmerizing thrumming of the machines and twirling of the clothes and made his way out of the laundry room. Then he wedged himself into the corner of a couch, wrapped himself in a blanket, and contentedly hummed to himself as he enjoyed the warmth and security he felt. To occupy his hands, Gabriel began braiding and unbraiding his hair, which had grown to past his chin. He’d have to remember to ask someone about why the hair on his eyelids didn’t seem to be visibly growing longer like the hair on top of his head.

He was startled from his musings by the sound that indicated that someone had rung the doorbell and was trying to speak through the intercom on the gate. While Gabriel tried to remember how to handle having someone at his door, Marinette stood outside the mansion’s gate holding a teetering stack of pastries. She shifted her arms to prevent them from tipping over and looked up into the security camera before speaking into the intercom.

“Um… Hi there, is anyone home? I’m here to deliver a package.”

A muffled thud followed by barely audible confused mumbling could be heard crackling on the other side of the intercom. Shortly after the gate opened and a face poorly concealed by sunglasses and a floppy sunhat (which were rather inappropriate considering it was early winter) peeked out from the now opened front door of the mansion. The person awkwardly waved at Marinette, and she approached them. Once she got within a few feet of the door, Marinette realized the person waving at her was Gabriel, and she tried to wave back at him while avoiding dropping her boxes, which was a posivitly herculean task. In response, Gabriel removed his sunglasses, revealing his normal glasses had still been on underneath them, and smiled.

“Oh, hi there friendly girl-child! You’re… Marinette? Adrien’s friend from school?”

Marinette nodded and tried not to think too hard about how uncomfortable wearing two pairs of glasses at once could be.

“Yeah, um… You met my parents recently…”

“Sabine and Tom?”

“Yep, that’s them… they asked me to deliver some boxes of pastries to people… since there’s a blizzard coming and they want everyone to have something nice and fresh to eat because a lot of stores will be closed and… yeah.”

Marinette awkwardly shrugged, and shook some snow off of her boots. She strained with one arm to reach the top of the stack and pulled the box down before handing it to Gabriel. The box was rather warm and had the Dupain-Cheng bakery logo printed on the top in pastel colors. 

“That’s really nice of them… they’re really good at making cookies and stuff… how do they turn powdery stuff and eggs into something that actually tastes good?”

Gabriel made a vague gesture with his hands that Marinette assumed was supposed to represent eggs, flour, and sugar. It struck Marinette how baking was a largely human exclusive concept, since Gabriel didn’t seem to have any real concept of how it worked. All he really understood was that a bunch of objects somehow got put together to make something they had no resemblance to on their own. Most other forms of cooking made some modicum of sense to him, as the finished products still somewhat looked like their raw components. 

“I can ask them to send you a cookbook or something. By the way… where’s Adrien and Nathalie?”

“Oh… Adrien’s at some sort of practice… I… sorry… I forgot the word… and Nathalie’s out doing business stuff, so I’m pretty much on my own for a few hours…”

Marinette made a mental note to message Adrien later about his plans for the holidays, along with as many other friends and relatives as she could to figure out who could attend parties together and where to send appropriate gifts. 

It was then that she noticed Gabriel’s shirt, which had a massive brightly colored letter “B” emblazoned on the front in bold font. 

“Alright… ummm…. What does the B stand for?”

Gabriel looked down at his shirt and then back up again before shrugging.

“I don’t know… I guess I’m just B-ing myself”

This explanation and pun did not satisfy Marinette's curiosity, but she decided against enquiring further as she expected it would result in an endless feedback loop of puns and confusion. 

“Ah…. ok”

Gabriel adjusted his sunhat, which had been slowly slipping down onto his face throughout the conversation until it had reached the point where only his ears were propping the majority of its floppy woven mass up.

“It…. it sounded a lot better… in my head….”

“Nah, it’s fine….”

The two of them stood there in awkward silence for a moment before Gabriel began walking backwards back into the house. 

“Um… I have to go back inside. Nathalie says I have to be… discrete… and quick, when going outside the house by myself... I think I might be well known around here? I dunno… but… um… thank you! Bye!”

Gabriel made some great dramatic gesture with the hand he was using to hold the box in what was seemingly an odd substitute for waving goodbye, since such a gesture was nearly impossible when holding a large box of pastries.

As she waved goodbye and walked away, Marinette could have sworn that she’d seen vaguely similar melodramatic gestures used before by someone else, but she could not quite put her finger on who at the moment. She would have to reflect on that later when she wasn’t so focused on participating in a conversation and trying to mentally record every detail that she could. In that moment she wished Alya was there with her, since the aspiring reporter was much better at picking up on and drawing potential information from specific details like word choices or seemingly minor expressions and gestures. She could try to remember and probably bring details like this up with Alya after she delivered all of her baked goods and Alya got out from her meeting with the school newspaper club in preparation for the spring semester..

Evidence in favor of Gabriel truly having been a butterfly was stacking up further in Marientte’s mind. Whatever the circumstances were for the man’s possible transformation, they were certainly very unpleasant, if his clothes and blood found in Hawkmoth’s lair were any indicator. She shuddered a bit at the thought of how terrifying it must have been, to be trapped in an unfamiliar body with no way to communicate with people who could no longer recognize you. 

**   
  
  
  
**

Meanwhile, Gabriel was rubbing his hands together in an attempt to warm them back up, once he set the pastry box down on a table. Gabriel then plucked a pastry from the box, making sure to close it tightly and refrain from eating the rest. He didn’t want to deprive Adrien a chance to eat pastries from the bakery the teen and his friends seemed to visit so much. It made sense now, to Gabriel, why Adrien and his friends frequented the establishment often if it was owned by the parents of one of those said friends. Humans seemed to be so good at forming complex social groups and communal support systems in ways that butterflies were simply incapable of. One good thing about being human, Gabriel guessed, was experiencing kindness and happiness in ways that he wouldn’t have even been able to comprehend as a butterfly. That didn’t make his experiences as a butterfly devoid of meaning, though, since he supposed he got to meet his son’s friends and see how happy they made Adrien even if it was in a strange, roundabout way. 

Gabriel shrugged and sat down on a couch, pastry in hand, and began chowing down on its sugary goodness. It was filled with chocolate chips, which were quite gooey and sweet, which was a plus in Gabriel’s book. Although really anything being sweet made it a worthwhile food to him. As he ate, he picked up a blanket he had left sitting on the couch earlier and wrapped himself up in it, leaving only his face and arms exposed to he could eat the pastry without dirtying the blanket too much. Within a few minutes, he had gobbled up the pastry and wrapped the blanket tighter around himself.

Enveloped in the warm embrace of a fuzzy blanket, Gabriel felt his eyelids growing heavy with drowsiness. He wriggled slightly to get into a position that wouldn’t leave him with a sore neck or back if he ended up napping for a good long while before letting his eyes drift shut. 

**   
  
**

Dark icy water lapped at Gabriel’s legs as he waded through an ocean that seemed to go on forever. Above him the sky was a featureless black expanse, drawing in all light and warmth. He kept his wings and what was left of his mid-limbs tucked close to his shivering body. His clothes were dripping wet and did little to protect him from the biting cold.

In the distance a crumbling snow-covered island sat lonely and forlorn. 

A body lay lifeless, face down in the water. He gently turned the body over, and was met with a younger looking version his own face that was terribly pale and sickly looking.

**   
  
**

Gabriel dropped down from his bipedal stance, gingerly placing his hands into the icy water to lift the limp body onto his back. The body was terribly heavy and damp, yet Gabriel was determined to take him to land in hopes of saving him if he wasn’t already drowned or frozen to death. Eventually Gabriel dragged himself and his burden onto the shore of the island with shaky, aching limbs. His lungs burned as he gasped and collapsed onto the cold snow-fisted ground. In order to move the body from his back, Gabriel rolled over slightly and carefully moved his wings out of the way.

**   
  
**

Once he’d laid the body down, he checked the body for signs of life. Much to his relief, the younger replica of himself was still breathing, albeit rather weakly.

**   
  
**

Before Gabriel could do anything, the body sunk into the ground, and Gabriel desperately tries to keep it from sinking further and further to no avail. Soon the body was completely submerged beneath soil and snow, and a tiny silver sapling had sprouted from the ground where the body once was. It was then that Gabriel became painfully aware of the numerous silver trees in various stages of growth dotting the otherwise barren island. 

Fear gripped him in its steely claws. He shivered, and tries to touch the ground as little as possible while he made his way to the only building in sight. Eventually he got to the building and managed to enter through a rotting door that was barely hanging on to its rusty hinges. He tried to shake as much snow and water out of his clothes and hair as possible before curling up next to a wall in the dark, dank room. Distantly, he could hear the sound of another person breathing from somewhere else in the room.

“Who’s there?”

A dim light flickered on, revealing the replica of himself that he had encountered in previous dreams standing stock still with his hand on a light switch.

“Oh, it’s you? The me who hates my current fashion choices?”

The Man scowled and morosely shook his head.

“Yes, it’s me. Tell me, have you at least tried to maintain our dignity and refrain from dragging our good name through the mud?”

Gabriel shrugged and then proceeded to shake the water and half-melted snow out of his clothes and hair, splattering the room with a slushy mess. This elicited a sigh from the Man, who wiped a bit of snow off of his otherwise pristine suit. His glacial glare bore into Gabriel, who shrunk back a little.

“You really don’t get it, do you? Everyone who is anyone in the fashion industry probably thinks we are a madman who should be scorned or pitied. Do you think any professional will take us seriously ever again considering how you’ve dressed and acted in our meager public appearances?”

The fashion industry mattered little to Gabriel at this point, yet he still felt vaguely ashamed at the concept of his behavior being perceived as “bad” by others. Self-consciousness was a deeply uncomfortable ache forming deep within him. 

“Sorry?”

Gabriel quietly mumbled as he scampered deeper into the room, seeking a more sheltered and warm location. Much of the room was in shambles, smelling of dust and must. The only half-decent looking portion was a small section of clean, intact wall with what looked like newly built and polished shelves holding freshly bound books and pictures. Something about the books seemed oddly familiar to Gabriel, and he cautiously approached one of the shelves while his doppelgänger looked on in chilly disdain. 

Gabriel hesitantly ran a finger down the spine of one of the books and found himself immersed in the memory of his speech-therapy session from the previous week. Nearly every sensation was replicated. Even Dr. Ramier’s ghastly pigeon themed tie was included. Choices to wear or use so many pigeon-themed things had led Gabriel to the conclusion that the man was some sort of daredevil or horror enthusiast for actively expressing interest in such dangerous beasts. 

**   
  
**

Gabriel gasped, finding himself on the ground with a sharp pain jolting up his spine upon being released from the memory. Even if the memory was fairly pleasant, the sudden shift of setting had been jarring. A huff was barely audible behind him, and Gabriel let out a yelp when he turned around to notice a face nearly identical to his own merely inches away. His eyes gazed into their more flat and harsh counterparts, as he tried to catch his breath.

“Wait this book showed me the past. This is…”

The Man stiffly stood upright, his face oddly smooth and motionless as his mouth pulled into some facsimile of a sneer.

“Our memories, or at least, what is left of them”

Gabriel watched the man stalk away. His looming form seemed monolithic, an unchanging picture of a mind that had begun to leave Gabriel behind. Shaking himself, Gabriel pulled himself into a standing position. 

“It’s probably for the best that we forget certain things, such as the Nail File Incident or the Igloo Incident.”

For a moment, Gabriel stared down at a patch of carpet that seemed oddly textured, nudging the strands with his foot before looking back up at his doppleganger. 

“What are those?”

The Man shuddered and turned to face Gabriel, some deep primal fear briefly passing through his eyes as he did so before he wrinkled his nose like he’d just taken a big whiff of some pungent odor. 

“You don’t want to know… your mind should remain relatively unsullied, ”

Then, the Man cleared his throat, adjusted his tie, and made some vague, stiff gesture with his perfectly manicured hands towards one particular corner of the room.

“Over there is one of the few salvageable memories. Most of them are mundane things like doing paperwork or brushing your teeth, but this one… well, it’s quite pivotal to understanding our past, should you choose to view it. I should warn you, though, there will be no turning back once you gain access to this memory, your blissful ignorance of just how far we’d fallen will be gone.”

Gabriel gulped and slowly nodded, feeling slightly lightheaded. The tattered book that the Man had pointed to lay amongst the rubble and ruin, looking oddly innocent for something containing such an important memory. When Gabriel spoke, his voice cracked slightly before taking on some more strength and conviction. 

“I need to know, I’m sorry… but I can’t live in the dark forever…. I need to know why I hear Nathalie crying in her office when she thinks no one can hear…. I need to know why I was turned into a butterfly…. I need to know the things I’ve done, however horrible they are… How can I make things better when I don’t really know what’s going on.”

There was something brittle and pained in the Man’s expression, as he watched Gabriel approach the book. When he took a few steps toward Gabriel in some half-hearted attempt to intercept him, Gabriel spoke to him in a gentle, but firm voice.

“Please… don’t try to stop me.. It’s not like you particularly liked us being so naive anyways… I want to help you… us… everyone.. I need context, even if it hurts…”

For a few seconds, they stared at each other, and for a moment, Gabriel could have sworn the icy mask of the Man had slipped, revealing revealing some terrible fear and despair. Even with all the confusion and pain of the past few months, Gabriel couldn’t imagine how horrible it must have been to be so full of misery, to live with only a fragile veneer of normalcy instead of actually being open about his problems. All Gabriel could see in his mirror image was a living emotional personification of a person stuck on an ice floe building a flimsy tent to hole up in to avoid seeing and being seen by those on shore. 

It brought Gabriel great relief when the Man backed off, once again akin to an expressionless ice sculpture. Gabriel sighed, and reached out to grab the book with hands that were still tingling from the blood rushing back into them.

Suddenly, Gabriel found himself standing in a cold metal room full of glowing butterflies. His stance was oddly steady and sure. Gingerly, he pulled off a glove to reveal a whole and unscarred hand. When he reached up to touch his face, he felt the smooth rubbery texture of a mask. 

Unfamiliar emotions screamed through his mind, far too fast to get more than brief consideration. Something about the glowing butterflies was familiar enough to fill him with dread. Hadn’t he seen pictures and artistic renderings of glowing butterflies before in news articles on akuma attacks?

The polished metal of a nearby wall reflected back the face of the monster that had struck fear into the hearts of Parisians. After Gabriel’s mind managed to process what exactly he was seeing, remembering, his stomach dropped into his feet. There was no one in the hollow, cavernous room except for him and the multitudes of butterflies. Gabriel's lips moved of their own volition, numb, speaking words that crept up from the depths of his mind.

“Nooroo, dark wings fall”

A tingling sensation traveled through his body as he was momentarily blinded by a strange light. Once the light faded Gabriel was met by the reflection of his own face, laid bare with a gaze full of malice and bitterness. 

His mind barely registered the presence of the tiny purple creature that had appeared soon after, and how the creature bore an uncanny resemblance to Plagg and some other strange creatures he vaguely remembered encountering before.

Some desperate naive part of himself hoped beyond hope that this was all some sick joke played by his own delusional mind. Was this truly the man he used to be, that he was still something of a derivative from? 

Bile rose in Gabriel’s throat. 

The truth sat before him, plain as day, gutting him.

****   
  



	8. Gabriel gets haunted by his past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if updates have been sporadic lately. I've been very busy with school stuff IRL and have also been struggling a bit with my writing. This chapter was a doozy, as in, I ended up doing nearly 2 full re-writes of it because I wasn't very satisfied with what I had produced. 
> 
> Regardless, I hope everyone enjoys this chapter!
> 
> Also, holy shit, so Gabriel’s now canonically over 7 feet tall, or something? I’m not really sure if I should (or want to) incorporate the canon height or just keep acting like he’s around 6’5 or something.

A strange sensation filled Gabriel’s chest, and he began to cough. Something seemed to be wriggling inside of his lungs, almost struggling to break free. His hand flew to his chest and he squeezed his eyes shut, coughing almost uncontrollably. An itchy, ticklish sensation crawled its way up his throat and out into his mouth. Before he could properly process what was happening, he opened his eyes and saw a little white butterfly flutter forth from his mouth. For a moment, he felt relief, before the sensation returned to his chest again, followed by an almost incessant stream of butterflies scrabbling and struggling their way up and out of his chest cavity and throat.

When he fell to his knees, clutching his throat, Gabriel let out a strangled cry. More and more of the butterflies tried to free themselves from his body, and he collapsed on the ground, spasming. The world around Gabriel bled together into an amorphous mass of sensations and primal terror as he fell deeper into unconsciousness. Everything around him barely registered in his muddled mind except the cold.

For a moment, the world seemed to melt away.

Sweat-soaked sheets were wound around his legs when he opened his eyes to mustard colored walls. The strong scent of lavender and cigarette irritated his nose as he sat up, clutching an oddly familiar stuffed toy to his chest. When he tried to get out of bed, he noticed that the ground seemed to be oddly far away. He struggled and shimmied his way out of the covers and off of the bed with the toy still instinctively holding onto the toy with his strangely small and chubby hands. The shaggy, slightly grimy carpet scratched at his bare feet as he stumbled towards the ajar bedroom door. Eventually he found his way to what seemed to be a small living room with an oddly shaped chair and a large leathery couch. Everything seemed oddly large and intimidating, looming over him like garish monoliths of cheap plastic and discolored wood.

A woman sat on a chair with stained red upholstery, facing away from him, breathing oddly heavily with a phone clutched in a white-knuckled grip. Gabriel walked over to her, reached out, and apprehensively tugged the woman’s shirtsleeve. 

Pale blonde hair sat in droopy ringlets like half-wilted yellow roses and chipped red nails glinted in the dull fluorescent light overhead as the woman brought the phone away from her ear. Without even turning around to look at him, the woman began to speak.

“Not now Gabriel… I can’t… not right now...”

A sudden wave of despair and confusion crashed over Gabriel. In response to the mess of foreign yet vaguely familiar emotions rushing through his bettered mind, Gabriel let out a whimper, and tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. He curled in on himself, clutching the stuffed toy closer to his chest. Fingers ran gently through his hair, prompting him to look back up at the woman. At this point he was openly wailing, snot and tears dribbling down his face. The sensation of nails gently scraping against his scalp was oddly soothing, and Gabriel’s tears subsided.

“Did you have that nightmare again honey? No monsters are going to get you here…”

While speaking in soothing, crooning tones, the woman dragged herself out of the chair and picked him up in her arms and awkwardly tried to rock him. Vaguely, Gabriel pondered over how he was so much smaller than the woman, and how her voice seemed oddly familiar.

The woman was looking at him now, but for some reason her facial features seemed distant and incomprehensible. Some part of his mind registered the flash of bright red lipstick and the slight wrinkling of a sharp upturned nose, but for some reason his brain could not piece all the details together into something, someone, clearly identifiable. Gabriel looked up into her distant eyes and whispered in a voice that was too high and clear to be his own.

“But what if the monster is me?”

The woman’s brows furrowed and made an odd humming sound. Gabriel wriggled slightly in discomfort at the oddly grating noise. For some reason, it reminded him of strangely familiar sound metal scraping against metal. 

Wobbling slightly on legs that did not look quite human, the woman stepped away from the chair with Gabriel in one arm and the phone still in her other hand.

“Well, I hear there’s good real estate under the beds and in the closets of naughty little boys who don’t eat all their veggies and interrupt important phone calls.”

A humorous yet chiding tone seeped into the woman’s voice as she shifted her weight slightly. The next few moments passed in awkward silence as Gabriel mulled over what she’d said and tried to rest his head in his hands, only to find that his face felt incorrectly shaped and softer than he remembered. Everything felt so wrong and confusing.

“I want to go home”

Something in the woman’s expression suddenly soured and her shoulders stiffened. With a brusque pace she walked over to the bedroom and unceremoniously plopped Gabriel back down on the bed. Through the door Gabriel could see the lights in the other room flickering and going out.

“I think you need a nap, Gabriel…”

Gabriel let out an irritable whine and tried to slide back off the bed before being picked up again and placed back onto the accursed price of furniture. A scowl briefly flicked across the woman’s face, and she grumbled to herself. She turned away, and began to leave the room. As she stood in the doorframe, shrouded in shadow, she began to speak. Her voice sounded muted and muffled, like she was speaking from another room over.

“Remember, Gabriel, don’t let them see you bleed… sharks can smell blood from a mile away and the world is full of sharks.”

In the moment that it took for Gabriel to blink, she disappeared into the blackness that had enveloped the other room. Gabriel lay prone in bed for a few moments, fighting the urge to duck under the covers, as he saw brief flickers of figures glowing in the shadows, huddled together and whispering in hushed fearful tones. Static filled Gabriel’s ears, and almost unconsciously he opened his mouth and began to speak.

“Hello?”

His whispered word carried weakly through the air, fluttering and disappearing in the static and void beyond the coor. On the other side of the door, a figure turned to face him, their voice called out through the static, barely audible.

“Can you hear me? Can you see us?”

A coldness seeped through Gabriel’s body, and he squeezed his eyes shut, unable to move any other part of his body.

**   
  
  
**

_ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 _

When Gabriel opened his eyes again, he was sitting in a classroom

There was some white tape on his arm that he couldn’t manage to pry off for some reason. His chest hurt and his mouth felt dry. Written on the whiteboard in bright green marker were the words “_ Wake up bright and pearly” _ with a cartoonish oyster drawn next to them _ . _

There was a poster in the corner of the otherwise drab classroom featuring a kitten in a lab coat and goggles with the words “_ Always be Pawperly Purrpared for lab!” _written in blocky slightly crooked letters. The odd bits of wordplay made Gabriel smile. For some reason he had the feeling that he did not smile often.

“Today, class, we will be going over_ [REDACTED]. _ Now, who would like to start off our discussion of the novel? Gabriel, you haven’t spoken in class in a while, what are your thoughts on the assigned reading?”

At that moment, Gabriel froze like a deer in the headlights, instantly regretting opening his eyes as his mind went completely blank. He didn’t even wonder how the teacher managed to make such a sound with her mouth. All eyes were on him as he stammered and his face began to flush. 

“I… um… I… I think… um…. he…um… I… um… I…”

Gabriel stared intently at his desk, trying to hide the hot shameful tears that were forming in his eyes as he struggled to find the words. Underneath his desk, his hands were balled into trembling fists. After a few moments of Gabriel awkwardly stammering and feeling like everyone’s stares were burning into him, the teacher cleared their throat.

“Remember to actually come to class prepared next time, Gabriel. Now, Eloise, can you tell us your thoughts on the assigned reading?”

Then, the teacher sighed and turned to another student sitting several desks down from Gabriel. While the other student responded to the teacher, Gabriel sat dejectedly in his chair, face burning with shame. He began to tune everything out, as he focused solely on mentally berating himself until the room around him became oddly silent.

**   
  
**

Across the room, sat one of the glowing figures, walking its fingers up and down its desk.It was smaller than many of the figures from before, and not much larger than the children sitting around it. If he concentrated on it he could almost make out glasses and the general shape of hair. Once again the figure was watching him, with an oddly melancholy expression on its largely blank half-formed face. With a shimmering finger, the figure pointed at Gabriel’s desk, where an old-fashioned telephone was hanging from the desk. The phone’s curled wire seemed to lead inside the desk.

Before Gabriel could move or even speak, the classroom was suddenly eerily empty. The vacant desks around him seemed to go on for miles now and a jumbled mess of words was written on his hands in smudged ink. With his heart pounding in his chest, Gabriel reaches down and picked up the phone, and a voice whispered through the static.

“Just keep breathing. Don’t worry.”

“What?”

The figure tilted it’s head to the side, fiddling with the hair adjacent structures on its head.

“We are scared too… missed you… can’t stay…We are already gone”

A yawning hole opened up at the front of the classroom, gradually growing until it swallowed Gabriel up. As the abyss below rushed up to meet him, Gabriel felt as if the breath had been stolen from his lungs. He was tired, and oh so very cold. The voice continued to whisper in his ear, as his grip slackened on the phone.

“What are you talking about? Who are you?”

“A friend… of sorts… perhaps I am a possibility… or something… someone lost…”

**   
  
**

_ 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 _

**   
  
**

Gabriel was sewing sequins onto a gown of resplendent red and gold. A half-build chandelier and several mannequins in various states of dress littered the backstage area around him. A pair of glasses that were much rounder than he remembered slid down his nose, and he snorted in irritation, trying to push them up with his shoulder.

A melody, played on the piano rang through the air, soon followed by the vaguely familiar voice of a woman, singing “Think of Me”*. Gabriel muttered to himself and swayed unconsciously to the memory. Suddenly, Gabriel let out a hiss of pain, as he accidentally pricked his finger with a needle.

**   
  
**

When he raised his finger to check for injury, he noticed tips of his fingers were red and aching, and for a moment he could have sworn that there was a smattering of snowflakes melting away on the backs of his hands.

The singer’s voice, once high and clear, now sounded muted amongst the rushing of wind and the insistent ringing of a telephone. The telephone was onstage, and somehow he knew the call was for him. So, he ducked around various people handling props or practicing various songs and dances, weaving his way through until he’d managed to get to the stage door. Hit by a sudden bout of drowsy lightheadedness, he struggled to open the door, but managed to make it into the wings of the stage. Dusty red curtains were draped from the ceiling and pulley systems for certain movable set pieces and curtains were rigged up on the wall next to him. The phone was only a few feet away, on a wall, and Gabriel staggered towards it. During his trek to the insistently shrieking phone, he turned to see the lone singer on stage. She was too far away for him to make out her face, yet her voice sounded achingly familiar. 

Gabriel felt like there was a jagged lump of ice in his chest, scraping and scratching away at his insides. He struggled through the last few steps until he was within arm’s reach of the phone.

Before he could grab the phone, he slumped down to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Staring up at the ever more distant stage lights above him, he couldn’t help but feel like he was stargazing. The music had stopped, and all Gabriel could hear was the ringing of the phone and the barely audible footsteps approaching him. A hand appeared at the edge of his vision, picking up the phone and placing it in his hand. The owner of the hand then moved Gabreil’s hand so that the phone was pressed against his ear. A voice crackled at him down the line, close, and yet so far. 

“Don’t give up…”

Distantly, Gabriel was aware of another figure laying down near him, scarcely a few feet away. He didn’t even have the strength to turn his head and look to whomever had laid down near him, staring up at the same electric stars. The voice trembled slightly, as if filled with extreme emotion.

“The water is so cold this time of year… if you don’t watch out it could swallow someone up, and they’d disappear with breathless lungs and eyes looking to a distant sun… I never thought I’d get the chance to talk to you again....”

“I don’t understand…”

“Perhaps you never will, but at least you’re still here… I’m gonna miss you when you wake up…”

Tears trickled, burning down his icy cheeks, as he closed his eyes.

**   
  
  
**

_ 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 ... _

**   
  
  
**

When he opened them, he was sitting slightly hunched over on a pale mattress. Ironically, not currently wearing his glasses made the familiar setting of a hospital room more recognizable. It wasn’t like he could forget what room like the one he had “met” Adrien and Nathalie in was like. The cool toned fabric hung shaplessly off of his frame like a shroud.

Moonlight painted dappled silver patches through the dark hospital room. Gabriel had his legs hanging over the side of the hospital bed and a blanket draped around his shoulders.

Someone was gently running a comb through his hair, trying to detangle any knots or mats without tugging too hard on his scalp and hurting him. Gabriel let out a quiet chirp of protest whenever the person got the comb caught on a knot and pulled a bit at his scalp while trying to work the knot out.

“Are you alright?”

Fingers lightly brushed against the places on his back where the thin membrane of wings once met the rest of his body, where he still occasionally felt his muscles unconsciously twitch as if those joints and sinew were still there. His heartbeat was oddly silent and his chest oddly still, no longer subtly rising and falling when he drew in breath.

Panic then struck him when he realized a glowing figure was laying on a hospital bed across from him, concealed beneath a sheet. The only indicator of their presence was a person-shaped lump and a soft glow from underneath the pale fabric.

“I don’t know…”

“I know what it’s like to be lost in the past. Ah, our dear son did grow up so fast… he’s… he’s so much like...”

Before she could finish her sentence, the woman’s voice trailed off into pained silence. With a sluggish turn of his head, Gabriel looked at the person behind him. 

“Emilie?”

The woman smiled indulgently at him, yet it seemed brittle. Her eyes stared wearily into Gabriel’s rather than shining mirthfully like they seemed to do when she smiled in old photographs and videos.

“That is my name, silly.”

Gabriel mumbled in a choked, halting voice, rubbing blearily at his eyes.

“I’m sorry I can’t remember you… I… I should have fallen ill instead of you… I should have taken it upon myself…”

Emilie’s face fell, and she shook her head solemnly, placing her hands in her lap.

For a moment, Gabriel wondered what her face would look like in all the colors he could see as a butterfly that he could no longer perceive with his human eyes. He wondered if this really was some part of the real Emilie, or if she was just a memory. 

With his heart in his throat and tears in his eyes, Gabriel watched Emilie get up and walk around until she was standing in front of him, hands on her hips and brows furrowed.

“It’s too late to change that now… It was my choice to keep using the Peacock miraculous even after it started to make me ill. I… we’ve both made our share of bad decisions. You, admittedly, more than I.”

Emilie cupped Gabriel’s face in her cold, smooth hands, and a weary smile formed on her face. He leaned into Emilie’s touch and let out a choked sob. 

“It’s my fault… it’s all my fault… I’m a monster… I don’t want to wake up, not now, not ever.”

With a frustrated sigh, Emilie let her hands drop. She sat down on the hospital bed beside him, her face illuminated by the gentle light of the moon and the figure hidden beneath the pristine sheets of the other bed.

“You need to wake up. You need to keep going.”

Gabriel’s tears left icy shimmering trails down his face and pooled in Emilie’s hands.

“I know you’re tired, and I know it hurts, but you can’t stop now, you need to face the music, hun.”

Gabriel reached out and grabbed one of the pillows sitting a short distance away and hugged it to his chest. He turned his gaze from Emilie to the shrouded figure, watching its light gradually dim and brighten rhythmically, almost like a heartbeat.

“But what if I get worse instead of getting better? What if I’ve truly ruined everything?”

**   
  
**

“Then you’ll still have another chance to improve! You still have your life, your chance to make up for your wrongdoings, your chance to find happiness and make others happy in return, cling to that and never let it go! Do what I cannot! Be the person you should have been! Be the father that Adrien deserves!”

A guttural moan escaped from Gabriel’s throat and he put a hand to his aching side, finding a patch of gauze that was speckled with rusty splotches strapped to it. 

“It’s time to wake up, Gabriel…”

**   
  
**

Then she was gone.

A phone rang, sounding closer and closer with each beat of Gabriel’s heart.

Gabriel picked up the phone. When he held it to his ear, the world fell away.

**   
  
**

————-______________————

An icy numbness spread through Gabriel’s body. Everything was spinning. Everything was wrong. When had his hands started shaking? He squeezed his eyes shut, and covered his ears trying to block out the horrible reminder of his crimes. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself staring up at the window next to his bed. At some point after he had fallen asleep, he supposed Nathalie or Adrien had picked him up and moved him from the couch to his bed. They had started forming a habit of doing so every time he fell asleep in an odd location out of concerns of his joints hurting or locking up from sleeping in cramped or awkward positions.

**   
  
**

Blankets were twisted around his legs as he lay curled in a fetal position. He untangled his legs and stumbled out of bed, barely remembering to put his glasses on. Horror and disgust left a bitter taste in his mouth as he struggled to keep himself from vomiting on the carpet. On trembling legs he stumbled to the nearest bathroom and emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl and flushed it.

As he stared down at the lazily swirling water and chunks of the pastry he’d eaten a few hours ago, he desperately wished for the innocent obliviousness to his own sordid past that he had had only a few hours before. His mind was still reeling from the realization that he was Hawkmoth. He was the man who had terrorized Paris, terrifying and traumatizing millions of people over and over, including his own son. Desperately, he wished for the past he’d forgotten to not be tied to such a despicable, villainous secret identity. It made him sick to think that he was likely the cause and subject of nightmares for numerous people across Paris. Everything seemed to fit together like a twisted puzzle, now. The nightmares, while still terrifying no longer seemed so incomprehensible when he viewed them with the context of his heinous past. 

The walls were closing in and his chest tightened. It felt almost as if the air itself suffocated him as he desperately struggled to maintain his composure.

He lingered in the tiny bathroom and the mirror and the shiny tiles that forced him to stare into his own eyes, and see the contempt and fear he now held for himself. The nasty vinegar-like taste in his mouth from the vomit seemed irrelevant to the bitterness brought on by this shameful past he now knew he had shackled to him like a massive flaming dumpster. 

In a daze, he staggered out of the room and rifled around his old office, now largely fallen into disuse, until he came across his old laptop. He returned to his room with the laptop and numerous papers and colored pens in his hands, and laid them on his bed. Before he got started, he quickly made sure to water his plants and restock the extra food for his butterflies. Time fell away from him as he began to write and research. Before long he realized that there were extensive speculation threads about Hawkmoth and numerous news articles about akuma attacks.

His head felt like it was full of broken shards from the shattered stained glass windows of his memories, the bits and pieces he could recall from his fading dreams. With trembling hands he began to draw out the salvageable fragments and piece them together using the information he could find online into something resembling a person, or perhaps merely an idea or caricature of a person. Though it was cobbled together and he was left raw and torn up and bloody inside, the image of the man he once was had begun to take shape in his mind, and it chilled him to his core. There was so much information from both his own head and the computers, and he frantically tried to make sure he got absolutely everything that passed through his mind or that he read and deemed relevant written down, regardless of how chaotic or messy it looked.

Estimates put the destruction caused by akuma attacks into trillions of euros worth of hospital bills and property damage only averted by Ladybug’s magical reset button. Numerous people terrorized for months, their own private thoughts and feelings weaponized against their peers and child-heroes. Hell, it seemed that as Hawkmoth he’d frequently targeted people in or around Adrien’s school, risking great physical and emotional harm to his son and hundred of other children. 

How could he have caused such suffering, such destruction? Had he seen the damage he’d been doing as Hawkmoth and still continued despite the immense cost to the people of Paris? The possible callousness and selfishness he might have had then astounded him. Gabriel honestly couldn’t fathom how his past self justified continuing something so dangerous and destructive. Would his past self have decided he would have been able to live with himself if people had died or been left injured or homeless had Ladybug ended up not being able to use her world-healing powers?

There were so many names, so many places, so many people he had hurt both directly and indirectly as Hawkmoth. The monster, the villain who ravaged a city for months on end had been him. Gabriel didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed before, how the smug sneering costumed man in the blurry photographs featured in the news had his eyes, his mouth, his nose, his posture. Did anyone else know the truth?

Gabriel desperately wished that this realization had all just been a trick of his tired brain, and that the fragment of a memory of him being Hawkmoth was fabricated, but the more he thought about it, the more the awful truth cemented itself in his mind as reality. There was no going back, and all he could do right now was bury himself in trying to make sense of things and try to find a way to make up for what Hawkmoth (_ What I? I suppose I should start thinking about Hawkmoth in first-person....) _had done. 

**   
  
**

————-______________————

**   
  
**

As he sat hunched over, silently freaking out and trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do with all the information he’d been able to collect, Gabriel became vaguely aware of the sound of his bedroom door creaking open and someone stepping in. He turned his gaze towards the door to see who it was, ignoring the cracking and popping of his stiff joints as he moved. How many hours had he been sitting here, again?

Carefully closing the door behind her, Nathalie approached Gabriel with a deeply concerned look on her face.

“Oh, Gabriel, I was looking for you…. Are you alright?”

Gabriel turned away and stared blankly out the window at the flurries of snow whipping about in the wind outside. A heavy silence hung between them before Gabriel spoke, with his throat sore and his voice hoarse.

“I... not really... I’m not sure if I’ll ever be alright again, Nathalie.”

Nathalie took a few more steps forward, her Gabriel swayed slightly where he sat, looking a little pale and feeling quite nauseous. Some part of Gabriel’s mind was vaguely aware of nearly unbearable hunger and thirst overcoming him.

“What do you mean?”

Before Gabriel could verbalize a response, his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped over onto the bed, unconscious. Nathalie rushed over and checked his pulse and breathing, as he slipped into unconsciousness.

The first tangible sensation Gabriel felt after everything suddenly going dark was someone’s hand holding his own. Then, he was met by a splitting headache, an ache in his chest and unbearable thirst. When he opened his eyes, he was laying down on a couch, his head supported by pillows. Nathalie was standing over him with a glass of water and some crackers that she handed to him, motioning for him to eat and drink. The moment the water met his lips, Gabriel began gulping it down enthusiastically, desperate to quench his thirst. Nathalie sighed and gently pushed the cup away from his mouth and motioned for him to slow down a bit.

“Honestly, we can’t have you forgetting to regularly eat and drink… It would be terrible if you were to neglect yourself and fall ill. Once your stomach settles, I can get you some soup.”

Gabriel shook his head and took another sip of water before shoving a handful of crackers into his mouth. A sizeable portion of his hair was matted against the side of his face, and he couldn’t remember where he’d last placed his glasses.

“Sorry, I… I was just caught up in learning things about… about my past… it wasn’t good, not at all… not good at all…”

Nathalie sat down on a nearby chair, her gaze drifting up to the ceiling before focusing on Gabriel’s face, almost as if they were searching for something in his expression.

“So you remember having your old, unscrupulous… hobby..?

For a moment, Gabriel didn’t quite understand what she was implying, before assuming she was talking about his escapades as Hawkmoth. It wasn’t like he’d done anything else she’d call “unscrupulous”, right?

“Y-you… you knew?”

An unreadable expression crossed Nathalie’s face and she spoke with a solemn, heavy tone, her fists clenched in her lap.

“About a certain proclivity of yours toward butterflies and mind control? Yes.”

Shame and horror filled Gabriel as he stared down at his hands. This whole time, Nathalie had known about the awful things that he had done. He didn’t understand how she’d been able to stand being around someone who had been as monstrous as him.

“Why… why didn’t you say… anything?”

“I guess I thought that since you’d forgotten, you’d be better off not knowing. You could live your life happy and oblivious and maybe one day all the terrible things that we’ve done would fade away into distant memory and we could move on with our lives! Without all that bullshi-... baggage… you were so much happier, and Adrien was happier too because you were actually spending time with him instead of obsessing over getting miraculous and wallowing in self-pity for hours on end!”

While Nathalie spoke, her voice wavered slightly with emotion. With an expression wrought with pain, she turned away from Gabriel.

“Keeping this secret has been hurting you, hasn’t it?”

A strong urge to reach out and comfort her entered Gabriel’s mind, yet he wasn’t sure how to or even if she’d want his help. He looked up at her, and nervously rubbed at the back of his neck.

“Yes, I suppose it has.”

Gabriel once again stared down at his pale, trembling hands and sighed, feeling as if his bones were full of leaden weights, dragging him ever lower with each passing moment.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess… into my life”

Nathalie scoffed and shook her head before turning back towards Gabriel with a stiff, awkward shrug.

“It’s not like I’m faultless either. I could have tried to discourage your endeavors as Hawkmoth or tipped off authorities. I didn’t have to actively help you…”

Gabriel felt like he had been punched in the gut and like the breath had been forced out of his body.

“You… you helped me? Why?”

“I’m not sure… I suppose I got attached to you, your family, and your cause…. To bring back Emilie…”

“Oh… so that… that’s why I did all those despicable things? I did all that to bring her back?”

Nathalie nodded and her breath hitched, as Gabriel curled in on himself like a can squashed underfoot. She watched the man sob quietly into his hands and struggle to come to terms with everything he had been learning. Gabriel couldn’t even begin to imagine how much the truth had burdened Nathalie or how he’d somehow managed to earn some semblance of loyalty from her from her back when he was so despicable and cruel. He was simultaneously guilty and grateful over her sticking around for all this time. Especially for Adrien’s sake, since the teen seemed to see her as something of a mentor or supportive figure. 

“How much do you remember… of your past… of being him?”

Gabriel looked up at Nathalie, momentarily puzzled by her question before answering around his still continuous sniffling.

“Flashes… bits and pieces… enough to see the kind of monster I became…”

For a few moments after, they stared at each other, unsure of what to say before Nathalie nodded in acceptance. The silence continued to linger for a few more moments, as Gabriel awkwardly nibbled on a cracker and tried to stop the nearly incessant stream of tears seeping from his eyes.

Once Gabriel finished methodically chewing and swallowing, mentally making sure he’d bitten the crackers into small enough pieces to keep them from scraping up the inside of his throat

“I need to tell Adrien… he deserves the truth… from his own father… rather than some cop or news reporter… if I get found out… he’ll even if I don’t get found out or go to the cops myself he needs to know…”

Nathalie stared at Gabriel in bewilderment, as Gabriel nervously stumbled over his words.

“What?”

“Even if he hates me… it’ll probably tear me up inside, but I can live with that… as long as he’s happy one day… even if I have to watch from the sidelines… as he grows up into a wonderful young man… the actual act of confessing and possibly losing his trust forever will be shitty, but I can’t keep Adrien in the dark about this.”

With a sigh, Nathalie shook her head and leaned back into her chair, massaging her temples.

“Play shit games, win shit prizes…”

Gabriel nodded and turned over onto his stomach, so that his chin was resting on the arm of the couch. He let his arms splay out in odd directions and stretched his back out, eliciting a series of rather loud popping noises as his joints and vertebrae righted themselves.

“I should.. Turn myself in… at some point… I won’t tell them about you being involved, though, if you don’t want me to, Nathalie… that’s your choice to make…” 

Stepping into the adjacent room, Nathalie spoke slightly louder so her voice could still be audible to Gabriel as she rummaged around.

“You could evade some legal retribution with an insanity plea… and that’s even if they consider your confession grounds for a trial and not just a delusion or some form of brainwashing from Hawkmoth. In all honesty, people are probably less likely to believe you’re Hawkmoth despite evidence showing you having a connection to him thanks to good PR. You might have less clout and respect in the fashion industry, but you’re overall a more sympathetic figure in the eyes of the general public now.”

Much of more embarrassing details from Gabriel’s life, like Gabriel nearly choking to death on oatmeal, were obscured from the public eye due to Nathalie’s tight control on information about Gabriel during the first few months of his return. The court of public opinion would end up playing a major role in the aftermath of a public confession from Gabriel long before he ever would ever have the chance to step foot into an actual courtroom. 

“I should at least try to tell the truth… the public deserves to know even if they don’t believe me… Even if they don’t think I could really have had the potential in me to be that evil.“

Nathalie returned to the room carrying a bowl of soup and a cup of coffee. She gave the warm bowl to Gabriel and took the coffee for herself, knocking the dark liquid back and ignoring the bitter taste. Gabriel adjusted himself so that he was now sitting in a somewhat upright position and able to rest the soup on top of a pillow he had placed on his lap.

“And if they do believe you? Will you be alright with people thinking that you are a horrible criminal, and possibly throwing you in jail for years or even decades?”

Swirling the spoon around in the thick red soup, Gabriel shrugged and scooped a bit into his mouth.

“Hawkmoth ...should be take responsibility for his crimes… and… I’m all that’s left of him… I’m used to prisons anyways… felt like my body was one for a while… Adrien could still visit me in prison… that is… if he’ll want to associate with me at all after finding out the truth…”

Gabriel made a vague gesture with his still dripping spoon before plunging it back into the soup, suddenly overcome by an odd sense of melancholy and resignation. If associating with Gabriel after the truth came out turned people against Adrien, he feared that Adrien would be hurt even more by Gabriel’s actions long after his stint of being a supervillain was over. Would people suspect Adrien of helping with his villainous endeavors if they truly believed Gabriel’s confession?

Gabriel wouldn’t want Adrien to set himself on fire to keep Gabriel warm. He oh so desperately didn’t want Adrien to suffer for Gabriel’s actions, and yet, Adrien already had. Any more hardship would be like the mud icing on a cake made of lies and rotting potatoes. Gabriel supposed it was time to start practicing confessions, and apologies.

**   
  
**

————-______________————

**   
  
**

Adrien walked down the hallway, practically skipping as he mentally went over all of the fun things he wanted to do with his friends over winter break, until he noticed that the door to his father’s room was hanging ajar. He stopped short and decided to peek inside to see how Gabriel was doing, and was almost immediately hit by the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. 

Papers were scattered about the room, blanketing the floor and nearly every piece of furniture in the room. There were far too many for Adrien to count with just a glance over them.

Words were written on the papers in the blocky, messy handwriting that his father had adopted while re-learning how to read and write, clumsily scrawled and scattered across the papers, sometimes connected by lines or what seemed to be maps or garbled questions.

Reading and writing had been one of the things that Gabriel seemed to struggle with the most after passing the hurdle of understanding basic spoken language and grammar. For a while the man just couldn’t connect what he saw as scribbles on a page with the objects and concepts in real life and the sounds he made with his mouth to communicate about and describe them. 

All of these words hastily scribbled on the paper with seemingly no obvious pattern or order were accompanied by strange drawings (aside from the maps and questions). Most of the drawings were innocuous, depicting strange, colorful costumes and various people, while others were rather unnerving. Some were sketches of figures that resembled people who for some reason seemed vaguely familiar with their facial features obscured by scribbles of bright color, beautiful yet grotesque in their garish forms. A great many of them seemed to be caught in the throes of some extreme, yet unidentifiable emotion. 

There were also numerous drawings of butterflies, most of which came in varying size and color and made sense considering the circumstances. It was the white butterflies that left Adrien feeling oddly shaken.

Unlike their fellows they had no individually identifying features, and they were in static poses instead of the more expressive and varied ones taken on by the other butterfly illustrations. They seemed oddly flat and lifeless, eerie in their bland identical existence. Adrien could have sworn that they were crude depictions of purified akuma, which could mean that some part of Gabriel remembered akuma and a possible interaction with uncorrupted akuma. Had his father ever seen Ladybug release a purified akuma, or could this be evidence of Gabriel having a close encounter with Hawkmoth at some point?

Adrien was startled out of his speculation by the sound of his father’s voice coming from not too far behind him.

“Oh… Adrien… um… nice to see you… there’s something really important I’ve been meaning to tell you… I guess I can tell you now, if you aren’t busy… Would that be alright?”

  
  
"Okay, sure..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Think of Me: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ncvnA8p4lww


	9. Gabriel comes clean

When Adrien turned to face his father, the air seemed oddly heavy, as if there was some sort of tension that he was only now becoming vaguely aware of. There was a strange sort of feeling in the back of his mind, be it paranoia or premonition, it felt like the world was hanging on a thread that could snap at any second. 

This feeling was only accentuated by how apprehensive Gabriel looked. His face seemed drawn and his hands trembled. Adrien couldn’t help but wonder what was troubling Gabriel so deeply, as the man looked almost more shaken than he had been after some of his worst nightmares.

Slowly, Adrien approached Gabriel like one might a frightened animal, and gingerly placed his hand on Gabriel’s arm.

“Are you alright? Do you need to sit down or have a glass of water before we talk?”

Gabriel flinched slightly and made a muffled, strangled sort of noise before slumping over slightly. Absent-mindedly fiddling with his cane, Gabriel shrugged and stared at the ground in front of him.

“I… I don’t know if I could say that I am alright and... be really truthful about it… I suppose sitting down would probably make this… easier… I’m not sure how long this conversation will go…”

With an understanding nod, Adrien led his father to a room down the hall with better seating, subtly helping Gabriel balance so that the trip would be more quick and less difficult. By the time they’d sat down across from each other, Adrien had noticed that Gabriel seemed to almost be steeling himself for something, presumably, whatever Gabriel had wanted to discuss with him.

Folding his hands in his lap, Gabriel resisted the urge to draw his knees up to his chest and move to a more comfortable crouching position, and looked Adrien in the eye.

“Okay… I know this sounds… absurd, but… I… I recently came to a realization about my past… from a dream, you see… it was a really strange dream and I started to remember some things… and well… I found out I was Hawkmoth.”

At first the words coming out of Gabriel’s mouth seemed quiet and strained, before eventually spilling forth in a shaky stuttering mess. Adrien furrowed his brow and struggled to process what he was hearing. Meanwhile Gabriel was nervously rubbing the back of his neck and frantically trying to keep his breathing even. Passing out from lack of air would have been rather counter-productive.

Once the last few words had escaped from Gabriel’s mouth, a tense, awkward silence descended upon the room.

“Did you just say that you were Hawkmoth?”

When Gabriel nodded in response, and he seemed to almost curl in on himself like a crumpled ball of shame-filled, soggy paper that was sinking back into the cushions of his chair. Adrien stared at him in befuddlement for a moment.

“Uh... dad it’s kind of insensitive to joke about something like that.”

A strained, wheezing combination of a sob and sigh left Gabriel as he hid his face in his hands. In that moment, Adrien felt frozen in his seat, unsure of how to react. Comforting his father seemed to be his first instinct, but if this was some bizarre joke, then his father was probably actually okay. It had to be a joke, because if it wasn’t everything about Adrien’s life would be infinitely worse in hindsight.

Gabriel frantically shook his head, a few strands of greying hair escaping from his sloppy half-way undone attempt at a ponytail. When his head finally stilled, Gabriel’s face was pulled into a pained sort of grimace.

“I’m not joking, Adrien, not in the slightest… I was so awful...”

Feeling like his heart was doing an amateur tap-dance routine in his chest, Adrien forced himself to speak in tight, hushed tones.

“So you’re not pulling my leg? You’re genuinely claiming to be one of the most infamous supervillains in recent history”

Gabriel nodded and wondered if what he was currently feeling was the “butterflies in the stomach” thing he’d heard about (when he had first heard the phrase, someone had to clarify to him that it did not actually entail eating butterflies, much to his relief).

“Yes… like I said... I got back some of my old memories recently… and one of them was… me being in Hawkmoth’s lair as Hawkmoth…”

Gabriel’s distress over the matter did seem genuine, and going to such lengths for what would be a tasteless and cruel joke seemed very out of character for him. While Adrien desperately hoped that what his father was saying wasn’t true, he had to acknowledge that Gabriel seemed to genuinely believe that he had been Hawkmoth.

With a sigh, Adrien tried to rationalize some way his father could be honest without actually being a former supervillain. It felt like he was grasping at straws, but pretty much any other explanation was better than having to take what his father was saying at face value and trying to deal with living in a reality where the man sitting in front of him was the monster who had terrorized Paris for months on end.

“While I don’t think you’re lying or anything… I… couldn’t it be possible for the memory to have been planted in your head somehow or for it to just have been part of a bad dream?”

The desperate hope for an out that he saw practically radiating from Adrien seemed to twist the knife of guilt further into Gabriel’s mind. Taking that sliver of hope, that tiny chance at maintaining some semblance of normalcy away felt even more like he was breaking the teen’s heart and destroying his trust even more than a simple confession would have.

“It’s possible, but… things just line up too well for it not to be the truth… and the resemblance between Hawkmoth and me is uncanny, even with a mask. Either I have an identical twin running around or, well, I’m Hawkmoth’s civilian identity.”

The moments after Gabriel finished speaking seemed to almost last for an eternity, as Adrien reflected on his memories of Hawkmoth and his father from before their respective disappearances (or, considering the circumstances, one singular disappearance for one man with two identities).

When Adrien began to seriously reflect on his father and Hawkmoth’s past behavior, he started to recall oddly suspicious actions on his father’s part that he’d attributed to grief or his father just being a bit eccentric at the time. All those important business trips coincidentally coinciding with incidences of nearly back-to-back akuma attacks. The Collector seemingly never appeared amongst the re-akumatized when Hawkmoth had become Scarletmoth and caused mass akumatizations of many of his previous victims. Strange, brief moments of deja vu in the rare moments Adrien had interacted with Hawkmoth in person. Not to mention Hawkmoth’s inactivity beginning around the time Gabriel presumably got turned into a butterfly made a lot of sense in that context. Hawkmoth hadn’t been akumatizing anyone or showing his masked face in public anymore because he wasn’t physically capable of committing criminal acts for the better part of a year, lost the knowledge that he even was Hawkmoth in the first place, and now seemed to be appalled by his previous villainous actions. Everything seemed to come together like a puzzle piece creating a horrific picture of what had been really happening during those months of danger and fear.

Adrien couldn’t help but wonder how much time Gabriel had spent gallivanting about as Hawkmoth that he could have spent actually trying to be a decent father and coping with his grief in a more healthy and productive manner. The fear that Adrien’s father hadn’t actually loved Adrien until after Gabriel had pretty much gone through a mind-wipe that has resided in the back of Adrien’s mind for months came to the forefront of his thoughts. It took every fiber of Adrien’s being to keep himself from screaming, crying, collapsing or all three.

When Adrien finally managed to pull words from the frantic calamity of his thoughts, he became vaguely aware of how thin and warbly his voice sounded, like the sound of an unsteady wind hissing across some foliage.

“Oh… you’re right, so you’re really sure this isn’t just some big misunderstanding.”

At some point, Gabriel had removed his glasses. Now he was looking forlornly at Adrien, with tears threatening to fall from his bleary eyes.

“I wouldn’t... blame you... for hating me... now… not in a million years… I’d understand if… if you never wanted to see me again…”

Adrien’s eyebrows furrowed and he solemnly shook his head.

“I don’t hate you. I don’t think I could ever bring myself to truly hate you. Sure, I’m deeply hurt and angry, and this all is really emotionally devastating, but I… I still care about you and I think I’d still want to have you in my life in some way or another.”

Adrien got up out of his seat, trying to wipe away the tears forming in his eyes. He felt like his heart had been caught in a vice and shot straight up into his throat. While he turned away from Gabriel, Adrien surreptitiously checked his pocket to find Plagg looking back up at him with a wide-eyed stare, silently mouthing the words “Are you ok, kid?”. With an almost imperceptible shake of his head, Adrien silently mouthed the words “No, lay low” back at the tiny cat-like creature. In response, Plagg sunk deeper into Adrien’s pocket, still shooting him deeply concerned looks. 

Perhaps in some attempt to comfort Adrien, Gabriel reached out a shaky hand before letting it drop, unsure if Adrien really wanted comfort from the person who had hurt him so terribly. Another silence stretched out between them, becoming taught and painful until Gabriel attempted to break it in some vain attempt to make things less awkward.

“This all has been… really hard for me to come to terms with… I still haven’t really… processed it all yet… I suppose that the feelings of self loathing will get worse before getting better… I… I suppose this is really difficult for you to deal with too… if you want to talk… about your feelings about this… or feelings in general... I… I’m here to listen… that is… if you are okay with talking to me...”

Staring out the window at the rapidly whirling snow, Adrien struggled to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat and began to speak, his voice thick with emotion. 

“I guess there’s a lot I need to get off my chest…”

For more than a decade, Adrien had shoved all of his pain and all of his sorrow behind a wall to hide it from others. He’d created a dam to hold it all back to avoid making a fuss, but he had been slowly drowning in it. Now that he was actually stopping to look at it all, Adrien realized his feelings were like an ocean of roiling, icy water, threatening to steal the very air from his lungs. Talking to his friends had helped relieve a good amount of it over the past few years, but there was still so much that he hadn’t been able to properly resolve, to find closure on. As Adrien began to pace back and forth, not unlike a caged panther, Gabriel silently nodded, prompting Adrien to continue. With a deep breath, Adrien attempted to look Gabriel in the eye as he began to speak.

“Aside from the whole Hawkmoth thing, you were a pretty awful parent before everything went down. I didn’t realize that your controlling and distant behavior back then wasn’t normal until I met my friends’ parents. There were times when I felt less like your son and more like an employee that you’d order around. It felt like you only kept me around because mom wanted a kid and you wanted to promote your brand! It’s been really frustrating, dealing with these feelings because I feel like expressing my anger and hurt from actions taken by past-you would be like taking out my anger on a bystander because you feel like a different person sometimes.” 

Hot, angry tears spilled down Adrien’s face as he averted his gaze from Gabriel and stared out the window once more. After taking several deep, slightly ragged breaths, Adrien looked back at Gabriel, and openly sobbed without shame. It was a strange feeling, to be able to express such difficult, tumultuous emotions around his father without fear of reprimand or the cold, disappointed stares that haunted his dreams.

In that moment, Adrien briefly reflected on the fact that he’d honestly formed more of a connection with his father since the man returned from the hospital and when Adrien had pet-sat “Subwoofer” back when Gabriel had been stuck in the form of Nino’s pet butterfly than he had in his entire life beforehand. So many happy memories rendered at least slightly bittersweet with the addition of context.

“Honestly I sometimes wish you’d been turned into a butterfly earlier so I would’ve been able to have a father who actually gave a crap about me for more of my life. You, as you are now, are the father I wished I’d had as a small child, because I know current you wouldn’t invalidate my feelings or toss me aside if I stepped out of line!”

Some small part of Adrien felt guilty for wishing for this, since he knew how difficult losing his memories and struggling to re-learn how to act like a semi-functional human being had been for Gabriel. Still, the thought of having been able to grow up with a version of his father who wasn’t so emotionally distant and whose personal flaws lacked the aspects of deep-seated bitterness and some strange obsession with control. It was amazing having a father who actually listened when Adrien talked about personal interests and who took Adrien’s feelings into account, treating Adrien like his own person with valid thoughts and feelings.

Having a father who didn’t take almost complete control over Adrien’s life without ever consulting him and who would have paid attention to him not just when it was convenient would have meant so much to him when he was younger, especially right after losing his mom. It was all just wishful thinking, but Adrien sometimes secretly imagined what his life would have been like if his mother hadn’t been the only emotionally available parent for most of his childhood, if he’d been allowed to have friends outside of Chloe and a chance to explore his own interests much earlier.

Throughout much of Adrien’s life, there had been this subconscious fear that he would never be good enough for others to love him, that he would not be beneficial enough to their lives and become a burden. Life without these deep emotional wounds and insecurities was both amazing and seemingly out of reach. Even with the support he’d been receiving the past few years, it was still taking a long and difficult time for Adrien to truly heal.

The world seemed distant to Adrien, as he let out a pained, guttural cry and hugged himself. After watching his own tears splash against the ground in front of him for a little while and attempting to catch his breath, Adrien heard a familiar, barely audible voice.

“For what it’s worth… I’m sorry…”

Adrien looked back up at his father, and let out a ragged, hysterical laugh.

“I don’t understand… you’re apologising, and I’m the one yelling and ranting at you and being unreasonable.”

Gabriel sat there hunched over in his chair, face beginning to become a bit red and puffy from crying, and tilted his head to the side slightly in confusion.

“Because you aren’t being unreasonable… I… I don’t know what past me did to make you feel so terrible about your feelings… and make you feel like your feelings are unreasonable… but it makes sense for you to be angry… you were lied to and tossed aside and recklessly put in danger by someone you loved and trusted… and you lost him before you could even resolve your feelings you had before you knew I… he… was a supervillain… and it makes sense for your anger to be directed at me because I’m… I’m all that’s left of him…”

Once Gabriel’s speech had begun to peter out a bit into a mumbly word-salad, Adrien couldn’t help the laughter and tears that once again overcame him. Through his laughter, Adrien spoke.

“Where did all this emotional intelligence come from…”

Gabriel shrugged, and attempted a small, sad smile.

“I guess Nino was a good influence on me?”

With that, Adrien’s laughter reached an awkward vaguely panicked crescendo before fading back into exhausted silence. Once silence had fallen over the room again, Adrien and Gabriel stared blankly at each other, unsure of what to do next. Adrien sighed, his gaze shifting up to the ceiling, and back down to the confused and rather agitated cat kwami hidden in his pocket. He shifted from foot to foot, and absentmindedly rubbed at the back of his neck before letting out a quiet, uncertain hissing noise from between his teeth.

“I… I need some time to think. I need some time to mull things over. If it really was you all along. I don’t know how to think, how to feel. This is all such a mess...”

Gabriel fiddled with the glasses in his hands and accidentally bit the inside of his cheek before nodding understandingly. He seemed to be resigned and vaguely hurt, and unsure of how to properly respond. Quickly sidling around Gabriel, Adrien made his way to the doorway.

“Just so you know, I’m not leaving forever, I just need some space to process everything. I’m hurt and I’m angry, but… I don’t think you’re really a monster, at least, not anymore.”

With an almost imperceptible trilling noise, Gabriel twisted around in his seat to watch Adrien as he began to walk away. For a brief moment, Adrien stopped and stood still in the doorway, speaking in a small, quavering voice.

“Alright, just… just try to stay safe, alright?”

The words seemed to float down like the bits of snow outside, and yet at the same time they seemed incredibly heavy, carrying a weight that Gabriel struggled to understand. Gabriel rested his chin on the back of the chair and responded in turn.

“Goodbye… take care of yourself, okay?”

With that final word, Adrien slipped out of the room and into the hallways, getting further and further away until Gabriel could no longer see him. Gabriel was too entrenched in his own spiraling thoughts to hear the quiet, distant scraping of claws against stone that came soon after.

————-______________————

The winter storm’s intensity had begun to ebb at some point in the day, leaving only gentle flurries to dust the city below with their tiny white flakes. Nino heard the freshly fallen snow crunch and squeak slightly under his boots and he adjusted his baseball cap. While some might have claimed a knit cap as superior winter apparel, Nino believed his trusty cap did plenty to shield his eyes and keep his head warm. 

As the clouds dissipated above him, the meager amount of sunlight still visible painted the sky in dusky colors. The snow beneath his feet sparkled almost as much as the stars above him. Silhouettes of leafless tree branches reached up into the darkening sky like desperate hands, grasping for stars that they could never reach. The bite of the cold was beginning to make Nino’s fingers ache, and he was ever so slightly regretting not bringing gloves.

Nino checked his phone for texts before slipping it back into his pockets and making his way over to a bench in the sparsely inhabited park. It was there that he found Adrien, staring up at the sky with an incredibly lost and forlorn look on his face. Upon dusting off some of the snow on the bench so he could take a seat next to Adrien, Nino noticed a good amount on the backrest behind Adrien, and swept some of that off too so that Adrien wouldn’t get an icy surprise should he lean back. After a few minutes of silence, Nino cleared his throat and began to speak.

“Hey dude, what’s up?”

Adrien jumped about a foot in the air and let out a surprised yelp before plunking back down onto the bench and responding.

“My stress levels, I guess…”

Nino’s brow furrowed in concern, noticing Adrien’s red-rimmed eyes and generally distressed demeanor. 

“Are you okay? You seem really bummed out right now, bro. Have you been crying?”

With a tired nod, Adrien rested his face in his hands and looked over at Nino. 

“Yeah, there’s something… really personal I just found out about… I wasn’t really sure what to do so I decided to talk to you because I trust you and… well, I feel like you’d have a unique perspective on the issue.”

In response, Nino gave Adrien a friendly pat on the shoulder and his “I’m intensely focused and ready to listen” face before speaking.

“Aw, I’m totally here for you, bro. I’m, like, glad you came to talk to me because based on my experience at Akumas Anonymous talking to people who you trust and who have your back about stuff that’s really bothering you can be, like, super helpful.”

Adrien sniffled and gave a weak, little smile before dropping back into his earlier demeanor.

“Yeah… I suppose so…” 

After a moment or so, Nino noticed that Adrien was shivering slightly, and not wearing nearly enough layers for the cold winter weather.

“Also, dude, you look super cold, and, like, hypothermia sounds pretty nasty. Here’s my scarf, I hope it totally keeps you warm… If you get too cold we can head over to my place and my mom can make us some hot cocoa.”

Before Adrien could register what Nino was saying to him, Nino was already holding out his almost impractically long woolen scarf, seemingly having unwound it while talking in some act of advanced multitasking and hand-eye coordination. Adrien gratefully took the offered scarf and wrapped it around his own neck.

“Yeah, thanks Nino, I really appreciate it. I kind of ran out here on short notice. I didn’t have much time to grab a jacket and I also kind of left the house while still being ‘you-know what’.”

This elicited a quiet hum and an eyebrow raise from Nino, who was mentally going over why Adrien would suddenly run off while in hero form in winter without proper attire or (seemingly) without extra food for Plagg in case Adrien had to use his powers or de-transform suddenly.

“Damn, dude, if whatever it was prompted you to do that it must have been super harsh.”

Adrien pursed his lips slightly and nodded, his eyes frantically scanning the park for anyone potentially listening in.

“Yeah, ummm, can we make sure no one can hear us before I elaborate on what happened.”

With a nod, Nino pushed the bill of his cap away from his eyes and also let his gaze “casually” drift over the surrounding area.

“Sure, you want to like, try to make a magical dome of silence or something?”

“That sounds good.”

Soon, the two teens were scratching out a series of runes in the snow around their bench. During the process, they checked a series of photos sent by Marinette on Nino’s phone of various example runes. Nino mentally reminded himself to thank Marinette and Alya for throwing together a quick and easy magical rune reference guide during their free time under the guise of a history project. 

Once they’d finished scrawling the runes, the air around the bench formed a nearly imperceptible “bubble” of unnaturally thick air that muted sound traveling through its walls. The two sat down and brushed off the faint smell of ozone lingering in the air. Adrien took a deep, shuddering breath and began to speak.

“Okay, so… my father just confessed to being Hawkmoth.”

Nino’s jaw dropped for a moment, before he collected himself and responded to his friend.

“What? Do you think that he’s, like, the real deal?”

Adrien nodded solemnly and frowned, resting his chin on his hands and his elbows on his knees. 

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. I mean, deep down I hope that Hawkmoth is a separate person who somehow tricked him into believing so, but I don’t know who else Hawkmoth could be and too much about my father matches up with Hawkmoth for me to wholesale dismiss it.”

After brushing some snow that had fallen onto his hat and shoulders, Nino bit his lip and shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess it sorta makes sense in hindsight. I don’t think the police really found anyone else’s belongings and blood in the portions of Hawkmoth’s lair they managed to uncover and your dad never showed up in the same place as Hawkmoth at the same time. Now that I think about it, your dad’s company logo looks weirdly like a butterfly. That could be a coincidence, but considering everything, yeah, probably not.”

Adrien shook his head and winced, thinking back on all of the times he’d seen his father’s company logo, on top of all of the other bizarre (in hindsight) vaguely butterfly-like designs built into the architecture of their manor. Their family had moved into that manor after Adrien’s family took that one rather long “vacation” in Tibet, which was probably where Gabriel had gotten his hands on the butterfly Miraculous. All of those long stops at various antique shops and long hikes along backroads in various Tibetan national parks that Adrien had been dragged along to as a young child now suddenly seemed very, very suspicious.

“Shit how did I not notice that?”

Adrien muttered to himself in frustration and bafflement, and Nino placed a comforting hand on Adrien’s shoulder.

“Hey, you’ve spent your whole life looking at that thing. It probably didn’t occur to you to, like, think too much about it since it was sorta like mental background noise at that point.”

Staring at his shaky and partially numb hands, Adrien nodded and turned to look at Nino.

“Yeah, you’re probably right… I… How do you feel about this, Nino? What should I do?”

Nino stroked his chin with his thumb and forefinger, mulling over the implications of what he’d just learned.

It had been hard enough for Nino to deal with the fact that his beloved pet and the rude and overly controlling parent to his friend were one in the same. Now he had to contend with the absurd reality of Hawkmoth, Adrien’s dad, and Subwoofer all being the same guy, and it left him deeply conflicted and emotionally confused. He wasn’t really sure he could fully pin down how he felt about the man or what kind of person (or, well, butterfly) Gabriel was. It was so much easier by comparison for Nino to reconcile the likeable creature Gabriel had been as Subwoofer and seemed to be now with the still reprehensible, but relatively mundane evils of being a bad parent and callous prick. 

Was Gabriel’s true self a shameless supervillain, Nino’s beloved pet, Adrien’s eccentric father, or somehow all three rolled into one absolute hodgepodge mess of a person? Nino honestly wasn’t sure. He figured that this situation would have to be approached with tact and caution, which was made more difficult by the emotional investment Nino had in this, especially in regards to Adrien’s mental and emotional well-being. Adrien still seemed to harbor some lingering trauma from being effectively orphaned for nearly a year.

“I’m still overjoyed that my little buddy is still alive but like… he’s not little. He’s your dad, and a supervillain.”

Figuring out how he should think about and act around Gabriel (due to the guy living in the same house as one of Nino’s best friends) had already been a conundrum, since Nino’s previous views of the man (unpleasant authority figure or an adorable, fairly helpless pet) no longer really applied to the person Gabriel had become.

Nino was also painfully aware of possibly being reminded of all the times him and his friends had been turned into supervillains, turned into inanimate objects, thrown from great heights, nearly crushed by debris, and a whole host of other dangerous and potentially fatal events any time he interacted with Gabriel and how deeply uncomfortable that would be on top of the awkwardness of remembering that this guy was the butterfly that he’d fed via fruit juice soaked paper towels. 

The silence following Nino’s attempt to concisely explain his muddled feelings was broken by Adrien clearing his throat and muttering.

“Former…”

Nino nodded, and thought that Gabriel likely no longer had the butterfly miraculous in his possession and had lost it at some point due to it being far too large for a butterfly to wear or carry. At least, if something resulted in the man backsliding into evil-doing, he wouldn’t have the power to cause as much destruction as before. Almost immediately, Nino responded.

“Right, former… He doesn’t seem so evil now, but it would probably be good to have back up plans just in case… like if someone comes after him looking for revenge or he goes bad again.”

Nino sighed and watched the street lamps around them begin to light up. The dark and the cold that could be found in the gaps between the lamps and the stars no longer frightened him like they had when he was small. During his time as a hero, he’d learned not only to protect himself and others from terrible things but also that what was to be truly feared was the cruelty that resided in some people’s hearts. 

The teen closed his eyes and let out a long exhale, feeling his hot breath escape into the cool night air before condensing into a fine mist. 

Not too long ago he’d been goofing around with Adrien and their other friends, joking about how the mist almost looked like a dragon's breath. Some part of him wanted to bring back that levity, to see the joy in his friend’s eyes, but he wasn’t sure if he could quite muster it right now.

With a slow shake of his head, Nino patted Adrien on the shoulder and gave his friend a sad sort of smile.

“My own feelings about the guy are still pretty confused right now, but I’ll support you regardless of your stance and how you, like, navigate your relationship with him from now on, as long as you don’t do something dangerous like run off and become Hawkmoth 2: Electric Boogaloo, which would be, like…. unfathomable for you, dude..”

Adrien let out a weak little snicker at the absurdity of the idea, and the relief that one of his first friends still supported him regardless of whether he decided to try and forgive Gabriel or not.

“Yeah… the day I become the next Hawkmoth is the day Plagg starts hating cheese.”

Seeing Adrien make some form of laughter brightened Nino’s smile a bit, and he let out a quiet chuckle.

“You’d be a terrible supervillain, dude, and I mean that as a compliment. The most evil thing I could picture you doing would be, like, mildly inconveniencing people or something.”

Adrien shook his head like a wet dog to get the snow out of his rather messy looking hair and grinned at Nino.

“Psh, yeah, I’d be the most reluctant supervillain ever!”

At least for that short time, any tension the teens had been feeling was dispelled and they let themselves have some laughter and light-heartedness before they had to handle what was looking like an emotionally (and potentially legally once the cops found out) complex situation.

Once their laughter and jokes had died down, Nino and Adrien were left staring breathlessly up at the smattering of stars still visible among the cloud cover and light pollution. Nino wiped the mist and bits of snow off of his glasses and stood up.

“Hey… dude, just remember you can come to me and the rest of our friends, especially the ones in our ‘club’, if you need anything.”

Looking at Nino as he stood up from the bench, Adrien felt incredibly glad that he’d been able to find so many great friends in both his hero and civilian life. 

“Thanks… I’m probably not in danger or anything else right now, but having you and the rest of our friends supporting me means a lot.”

Nino adjusted his cap, and a supportive and reassuring smile formed on his face before dropping slightly into an expression of concern. 

“Yeah, bro, that’s what friends are for… I have your back right now and I know you’ll have mine when I’m having a rough time. Just in case, we should keep an eye out for Mayura, since she might want to prevent this from getting out, since it could possibly expose her true identity as Hawkmoth’s accomplice, whoever she is. Would you like to tell the others or would you feel more comfortable if I break it to them?”

Tugging at the scarf around his neck, Adrien scuffed up some snow with the toe of his shoe.

“Yeah… I think I’ll need time to think about how this should be broken to the others. Hey, don’t you want your scarf back?”

While shaking his head slightly, Nino drew his leg across one area of the rune circle in order to erase the runes in that area, disrupting the circle and dropping the bubble.

“Don’t worry, dude, you can keep it until we see eachother again.”

Adrien stood up and pulled Nino into a tight, slightly tearful hug.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you… I think I’d better go home… goodbye…”

The two teens eventually broke the hug, and both tried to hold on to the hope that everything would turn out ok while planning for the worst just in case. A gentle breeze carried loose snow from the drifts around them, creating beautiful, haunting, and nearly intangible patterns in the cold evening air. Nino stepped away and waved goodbye, determined to maintain some optimism despite his apprehension and concern for his friend.

“See you soon, bro.”

Adrien returned the gesture, and Nino watched him slowly walk away, disappearing into the darkness of the night. In the distance, he could hear Adrien’s voice carrying weakly on the wind like the little bits of snow.

“See you soon.”

Soon, Adrien’s voice faded away, concealed by distance and time like the moon when covered by a cloud. Nino took a deep breath, slipped into a nearby alley, and transformed. Home wasn’t too far away, but it was better to be safe than sorry on a night like this.

**   
  
**

————-______________————

Gabriel staggered into his room, and stared into the darkness. He contemplated leaving it this dark and curling up into a ball under a blanket or bit for furniture so he could pretend he was simply resting under some bark or in a tree hole.

In the back of his mind, he noted that he’d need to clean up soon, especially before winter ended and he no longer felt the instinctual urge to crawl into cramped, dark spaces to overwinter like most other longer-lived varieties of butterfly. 

Gabriel sunk down onto the floor in a haphazard manner, his cane making a quiet clattering noise even when he carefully placed it on the ground near him. Curling up into a fetal position, Gabriel let out a ragged sob, muffling the sound of it with a trembling hand. He rolled over onto his back, splayed out his limbs, and tried to stretch and dispel some of the stiffness in his joints before finding himself rather devoid of any specific thought. Everything floated nebulously around in his mind, and he couldn’t really get a solid grasp on any particular train of thought as he mentally shut down a little bit.

**   
  
**

After a few moments of laying on the hard floor, staring blankly up at the ceiling, Gabriel closed his eyes and sighed. Exhaustion and regret sunk deep into his bones, drawing him down deeper into the disorganized mess of his own mind like lead weights. 

Despite the ever-growing desire to just retreat into his own mind and spend the rest of his life hiding in a bush or tree, Gabriel knew he had to deny himself that sort of escape. There was no way he could live with himself if he abandoned the people he cared about and the people he’d hurt (and he now knew those two categories had quite a lot of overlap). 

The few butterflies that were still active instead of overwintering clustered around him, vaguely cognizant of how Gabriel laying down for so long out in the open like this was abnormal. After a few moments, a handful of the more perceptive and worrisome insects experimentally tapped Gabriel’s face with their antenna and made questioning trilling noises. 

_ Deadsickhurt? _

Gabriel’s eyelids fluttered open and he let out a quiet, raspy series of clicks 

_ Notdeadnosicknowound _

Satisfied with his response, most of the mellower butterflies went on their way while one or two stayed behind demanding food and more of a response from Gabriel. 

Of course, despite Gabriel feeling like his life was being upended, nothing had truly changed for the butterflies in his care. The word Hawkmoth was just one of many strange human noises they’d heard from him. All that they knew was that the big creature that made garbled butterfly-like noises and brought them food and warmth was in some form of distress that they could not identify with their rudimentary manner of interacting with and understanding the world. 

With a sigh, Gabriel rolled over (carefully ensuring he was not going to accidentally crush any butterflies that were on the floor) and reached under his bed. With a tug, he pulled out a bag of dried flowers, a bottle of apple juice, and some napkins. With a quick twist of his hand, Gabriel unsealed the apple juice and poured some onto the napkin before sliding the now-soggy napkin towards the nearest butterfly. Gleefully chirping, the little butterfly began slurping juice up from the napkin and was soon followed suit by a number of butterflies that had been lingering in that part of the room.

Gabriel took a swig of the remaining apple juice and spent some time gazing pensively at nothing in particular. The hard floor and awkward position were starting to make his back and hips ache. Struggling to his feet, Gabriel leaned heavily on his cane and started absent-mindedly going through the motions of watering his plants. Even through the haze of his emotional turmoil, he still made sure that his plants wouldn’t be neglected and left to die. After all, once he’d publicly confessed and turned himself into the police, Gabriel feared that he wouldn’t get a chance to come back and tend to them for a very, very long time. The terrifying possibility of imprisonment loomed overhead, and the thought of being trapped in a confined space surrounded by strangers without the ability to climb or hide anywhere sounded nauseating and nerve wracking at best to Gabriel. Still, he wouldn’t let that possible consequence stop him from trying to continue with his plan to take steps to atone for his crimes in whatever ways he could.

Honestly, the painful awareness of having been Hawkmoth had thrown his fledgling sense of self identity back into turmoil. The thought that some of that propensity for destruction in the name of his own selfish desire remained as an inherent part of him terrified Gabriel. He desperately hoped that becoming Hawkmoth had been due to some life experiences that had been supplanted by butterfly instincts rather than some core flaw in his nature. Because, he very much preferred intense cravings for liquids or sugary foods over the line of thinking that led to him believing that playing “magical evil mastermind” would solve any of his problems.

Gabriel stared at his own reflection in the window, still holding a now-empty cup limply in his hands, having emptied its contents into the various flower pots. In what might have been some attempt to cheer himself up or even see if he could still smile at all, Gabriel tried to pull his lips into a weak smile, and almost immediately dropped it.

The resemblance to Hawkmoth’s malicious smirk somehow left him more unnerved by the sight of his own smile than the still somewhat alien nature of teeth and stretchy human flesh. For what was likely the first time, Gabriel was thankful for his scars taking away at least a little bit of that horrid resemblance, permanently keeping his face from being an exact replica of his old visage.

After some time had passed, Gabriel decided that this introspective stuff should probably wait until he’d figured out how he should go about bringing the truth out and how to deal with the changes in his relationships with Adrien, Nathalie, (and once the truth came to light) pretty much everyone else in his life. He was fairly certain that most of his therapists had been akumatized at some point, and he honestly wouldn’t think any less of them for dropping him like the jumbo suitcase full of radioactive waste and parasitic wasps-worth of baggage that the whole “amnesiac ex-super villain” thing brought.. 

He couldn’t risk falling into a cycle of wallowing in self-loathing in despair, not before he could confess the truth and attempt to make reparations of some sort. Upon placing the cup somewhere stable, Gabriel plucked a few petals from a brightly colored flower that was safe for human consumption (Nathalie had done her research before letting him get his hands on any new plants that could contain enough flowers for him to ingest in large quantities). 

Gabriel worked the bright orange flower petals between his teeth, savoring the strong, peppery taste. In that moment, he let himself drown in the colors and tastes and textures, forgetting briefly all of the strife he’d been feeling. Focusing on only his most basic sensations drowned out his higher, more human thoughts for a little while. 

**   
  
**

Slowly, he let thoughts and brief snippets of memory come back into focus in a more orderly fashion, trying to organize and make sense of everything. With great care, he managed to pick out a handful of fragments of memories and feelings that didn’t quite fit in with the rest, and narrowed those down to the rather meagre collection of memories that seemed to be from when he was actively being Hawkmoth. He turned them around in his head, trying to withdraw as much information from them as he could, so that he could figure out how he’d stooped to such methods in order to hopefully avoid repeating the past.

After mulling over the little snippets of memory he had of being Hawkmoth, something occurred to him that he hadn’t noticed before. The “Nooroo” that appeared on occasion in these memories looked oddly similar to Plagg and the creatures that he vaguely remembered encountering as a butterfly. In hindsight they all looked rather similar, with only a handful of physical features and a color scheme to differentiate them. Gabriel had a hunch that these creatures had some sort of a relationship to the miraculous, based on how “Nooroo” seemed to appear from and disappear into the butterfly miraculous.

By extension, Plagg could also have been connected to a miraculous, and probably the cat one since he looked an awful lot like a cat (with intimidating fangs that could probably pierce exoskeletons and tear flesh). 

Then after a moment of trying to figure out just why Plagg had been hanging around the manor and seemingly away from the miraculous he was likely tied to, Gabriel remembered that Chat Noir’s cat miraculous had been described as a ring in various news reports that he had read and watched. Gabriel tried to remember any consistent presence of a ring in his memories, especially the more recent ones around the times he’d encountered Plagg, and began to become very aware of the fact that Adrien had been consistently wearing a ring for quite a long time. Not to mention the fact that Adrien also happened to be around the same age as and have the same hair and eye colors as the cat-themed superhero.

For a moment, Gabriel stared blankly down at his hands as a horrible realization slowly dawned on him. 

Adrien was Chat Noir.

Mortification filled Gabriel as he realized that he’d not only physically struck, but nearly seriously injured his own son. He could have killed the child he should have been protecting and caring for. His son, his baby, could have died at his hand and he likely wouldn’t have even known until he’d ripped the miraculous from the boy’s cold, dead fingers.

Gabriel could hardly feel his limbs, as the blood drained from his face and he stumbled backwards before collapsing into a ball on his bed, his breathing growing more rapid and shallow. He could taste bile in the back of his throat as he let out choked, gasping sobs. 

****   
  


Now, Gabriel was surprised that Adrien hadn’t been as disgusted and horrified as he could have justifiably been. Curled up in his mess of a bed, Gabriel felt like a mess of a person. He did not know if hours or minutes had passed by the time he’d exhausted himself from crying and lost consciousness. All that he had to keep himself from despair at that time was the motivation to atone for his crimes and be a better father, even if that meant living with and respecting Adrien not forgiving him or cutting off contact.

By the time Gabriel had fully slipped off into sleep, he was wholly unaware of his bedroom door creaking slightly as Nathalie pushed it open and peered into the room. Nathalie noticed Gabriel’s crumpled up form laying haphazardly on his bed, and called out to him in a hushed tone.

“Are you awake?”

When she got no response, Nathalie entered the room and carefully approached Gabriel, trying to maneuver around papers and the occasional stray butterfly. She let out a quiet sigh of relief, when she saw the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Even though Gabriel had gotten very good at sleeping without covering his airways and risking accidentally smothering himself, Nathalie still worried, especially since Gabriel was possibly distressed enough to forget and fall asleep with his face planted firmly in a pillow.

Upon her brief inspection, Nathalie had also noticed that dark bags had begun to form under Gabriel’s eyes and his face was a flushed tear-stained mess. 

Although she was anxious to discuss how they would move forward with handling the situation, Nathalie decided to let him stay asleep, asking him about his plans and preferences for a public confession could wait a few hours. As quietly as she could, Nathalie draped a blanket over Gabriel’s trembling shoulders. With a precise movement, she slid his glasses off of his face and put them back in their case to prevent them from being crushed or dirtied should he turn over in his sleep. In his sleep, Gabriel wrinkled his nose and let out a quiet whimper.

Soon, Nathalie was exiting the room, leaving Gabriel to his dreams, and she could only hope that they were pleasant ones.


End file.
